AN IMPROVEMENT IN SIGNAL LAMPS
Year: 1883

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to James Irwin Coates of Southend House Headingley
Leeds in the County of York for an Invention of AN IMPROVEMENT IN
SIGNAL LAMPS
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said James Irwin Coates at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th October 1883.
JAMES IRWIN COATES of Southend House Headingley Leeds in the County of
York "AN IMPROVEMENT IN SIGNAL LAMPS"
It is often desirable to distinguish one signal from another, as for instance on
railways, where a day distant signal is distinguished by its form or position from
a station signal, but where there is no distinction of these signals by night. My
invention relates to means of making such distinction of night signals without
involving multiplication of lamps or burners which I effect in the following
manner. At the side of the ordinary signal lantern I make an opening and fit a
straight or curved reflector placed at such inclination as to receive a number of the
lateral rays proceeding from the burner and reflect them forwards through a hole
or slit in front. Thus the light will appear as the main light of the usual kind
with a smaller or differently shaped subsidiary light at the side of it, this
subsidiary light being produced by reflection without requiring a second lantern or
burner. Obviously there might be a subsidiary light of this kind at each side of
the main light, or there might be several such subsidiary lights arranged round the
focal axis of the lantern.

page_text: SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent filed
by the said James Irwin Coates in the Patent Office on the 9th April 1884.
JAMES IRWIN COATES of Southend House, Headingley, Leeds, in the county of
York. "AN IMPROVEMENT IN SIGNAL LAMPS "
It is often desirable to distinguish one signal from another, as, for instance, on
railways, where a day distant signal is distinguished by its form or position from
a station signal, but where there is no distinction of these signals by night. My
invention relates to means of making such distinction of night signals without
involving multiplication of lamps or burners, which I effect in the following
manner. At the side of the ordinary signal lantern I make an opening, and fit a
curved or straight reflector placed at such inclination as to receive a number of the
lateral rays proceeding from the burner and reflect them forwards through a hole
or slit in front. Thus, the light will appear as the main light of the usual kind
with a smaller or differently shaped subsidiary light at the side of it, this
. subsidiary light being produced by reflection without requiring a second lantern or
burner. Obviously, there might be a subsidiary light of this kind at each side of
the main light, or there might be several such subsidiary lights arranged round the
focal axis of the lantern.
Fig. 1 of the accompanying drawings is a front view and fig. 2 a plan, shewing
a signal lamp arranged according to my invention with one side light, and fig. 3 is
a front view and fig. 4 a plan shewing an arrangement of lamp with two side
lights. A is the ordinary lamp burner and B the front lens. Through the side of
the lantern at C, I make an opening to which I fit an elbow containing at its angle
a reflector D, and at its front a lens E, which may be smaller than the front lens B,
in order the better to distinguish the side light from the central light. A large
portion of the lateral rays of the burner A passing through the aperture Care
reflected by D forwards through E. In like manner, as shewn in figs 3 and 4, the
lamp may be made to present two side lights E and e. The lenses E and e may be
round, or they may be of other forms, such as square, or rectangular.
By varying the forms, positions and numbers of the side lights different signals
might be distinguished.
Having thus described the nature of my invention and in what manner the same
is to be performed, I claim,-
In combination with a signal lamp, a passage for lateral rays with reflector and
lens arranged at either or both sides of the lantern, substantially as and for the
purpose herein set forth.
In Witness whereof I the said James Irwin Coates have hereunto set my hand
and seal this Twenty-fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and eighty-four.
T
I COUTES