AN IMPROVED AUTOMATIC COUPLING OF RAILWAY AND OTHER CARRIAGES
Year: 1874

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Andrew Coulter at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 8th
June 1874.
I, ANDREW COULTER, of Riga, Russia, Engineer, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "AN IMPROVED AUTOMATIC COUPLING OF
RAILWAY AND OTHER CARRIAGES," to be as follows:-
The object of the present Invention is to provide for a coupling by
means of which railway carriages may be connected to and disconnected
from each other without the necessity of a person stepping in between
such carriages. This coupling consists of two hooks jointed to the draw.
rods of the two carriages to be connected. The joints are arranged so
that the bolts or pins of the same are vertical, and that the hooks may
turn on these bolts or pins in a horizontal. sense or nearly so. The
hooks have a sideward projection on the joint end forming with the hook
shaft a convenient angle. When the hook is in its acting position the
aforesaid projection is in contact with a spring fixed to the frame of the
carriage, which spring keeps the hook in the position required.

page_text: For the purpose of preventing the spring from pressing the hook too
far forward and over its proper place a stop must be provided on the
parts of the joint. The outer ends of the hooks are made inclined to the
centre line of the carriages, but so that the plane of the angle of
inclination is horizontal or approximately so. The shafts of the hooks
are made with an opening or frame like, so that the bent part of the one
hook will catch into the opening of the other; however this form may be
modified. The mechanism so far completed will allow of an automatic
coupling of the carriages by simply pushing them together, as the ends
of the hooks will slide over and lock into each other; but means have
to be provided for tightening the carriages or their buffers up against
each other, and also of mutually disengaging the coupling hooks; for
this purpose the draw rods are made in two parts, the ends of the parts
provided with left and right hand screw threads and connected again by
a screwed coupling, the latter passes through the boss of a bevil wheel
turning in fixed bearings, which wheel is put in motion by a second
bevil wheel fixed on a shaft projecting laterally through the frame of
the carriage; this end of the shaft is fitted with a hand wheel or a
crank. The screw coupling is provided with a feather fitting into the
slot of the boss of the first bevil wheel, so that on turning the wheels by
means of the crank or hand wheel on the side of the carriage, the screw
coupling of the draw rod will also revolve, but being free to move
longitudinally the ends of the two parts of the draw rod will be screwed
together or further apart, according to the direction in which the wheels
are turned; in the first case the buffers will be tightened up against each
other, in the second the hooks will be disengaged as soon as the above-
mentioned sideward projection on the joint end of the hook comes in
contact with a stop fixed to the frame of the carriage; the hook will then
turn horizontally back and out of gear with the other. The carriages
being shifted apart from each other the hook or hooks will be again
brought into the proper position for a renewed connection.