CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF RAILWAYS
Year: 1842

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CHARLES
FREDERICK GUITARD, of Birchin Lane, in the City of London, Notary Public,
send greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her
Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date at
Westminster, the Thirty-first day of August, in the sixth year of Her reign,
did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Charles Frederick Guitard, my exors, admors, and assigns, Her especial
licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said Charles
Frederick Guitard, my exors, adññors, and assigns, and such others as I, the
said Charles Frederick Guitard, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times thereafter,
during the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make,
use, exercise, and vend, within that part of Her said Majesty's United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called England, Her Dominion of
Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, an Invention communicated
to me by a Foreigner residing abroad, of "CERTAIN IMPROVEMENTS IN THE
CONSTRUCTION OF RAILWAYS;" in which said Letters Patent there is contained
a proviso that I, the said Charles Frederick Guitard, shall cause a particular
description of the nature of the said Invention, and the manner in which the
same is to be performed, under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in Her
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and by
the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Charles Frederick Guitard, do hereby declare that the nature of the said
improvements, and the manner in which the same are to be performed, are
fully described and ascertained in and by the following Specification thereof,
reference being had to the Sheets of Drawing hereunto annexed, marked
A, B, C, D, that is to say:-
Whereas the sleepers of railways, as now commonly constructed, are made
of wood, and from the perishable nature of that material require to be often
renewed at a great expence; and whereas attempts have been made to
substitute sleepers wholly of cast iron, but without success, because of the
great weight which it was found necessary to give to such sleepers to enable
them to sustain the pressure and strain upon them, and of their consequently
high cost, and because also of their great liability to fracture on the yielding
or shifting of any part of the foundations on which they were laid.
Now, the nature of the said invented improvements communicated to me
as aforesaid, consists,-
Firstly, in substituting sleepers of iron, of such qualities and constructed in
such manner that they are free from the disadvantages aforesaid, and both
cheaper and much more durable than the wooden ones now in common use; and,
Secondly, in combining with the said sleepers iron chairs suitably adapted
thereto.
Of these improved sleepers and chairs eleven different varieties are repre-
sented in the Drawings hereunto annexed, and next herein-after to be described.
No. 1, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 1 (Sheet A) is a longitudinal elevation,
Figure 2 a plan, and Figure 3 an end elevation. A is a flat bar of malleable
iron, of uniform thickness and breadth. B, B, are the chairs, with their
bearings, which are made of cast iron and in one piece. C, C, are the square
seats of the chairs, with four sloping sides, for the sake of greater support,
a, a, a, a. D, D, are slots or mortices in the seats C, C, through which the bar A
is passed at each end. E, E, E, E, are vertical screws and nuts by which the
cast-iron chairs with their bearings are firmly connected to the malleable iron
bar A, so that when the whole are thus united they have the same appearance
as if the sleeper, the chairs, and chair bearings, were all of one piece. By
making the transverse bar A of malleable iron, the chance of fracture, from
the rails yielding at one side more than the other when the locomotive
engines pass over them, is completely obviated.
any such equality of pressure without giving way, while, if composed of cast
iron, which is of a brittle nature, it would in most cases instantly break.
The chairs and chair seats, with their bearings, being of small superficial area,
Being flexible it can bear

page_text: and of great substance or quantity of material for that area, are not liable to
any such strain as the bar A, and for these parts cast iron answers sufficiently
well.
A
No. 2, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 4 is a longitudinal elevation, Figure 5
plan, and Figure 6 an end elevation (Sheet A). The only points in which
No. 2 differs from No. 1 is, that the connecting bar of malleable iron A is
made flat at the ends where it is introduced into the slots in the cast-iron
chair pieces, as indicated by the dotted lines b, b, b, b, while the body of it, or
so much of it as extends between the two chairs, is turned up edgewise, as
shewn in the Figures.
No 3, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 7 is a longitudinal elevation, Figure 8
a plan, and Figure 9 an end elevation (Sheet A). The malleable iron bar A
in this case rests throughout on its edge, being inserted at its two ends into
vertical slots in the chair seats, and secured there by pins c, c, c, c, which are
passed horizontally through it. The seat of the cast-iron chair differs from the
preceding in three particulars; first, it has only two sloping supports (a, a.)
and these are inclined downwards from the base instead of upwards, as par-
ticularly shewn in Figure 9; second, it is cast with two forks d, d, which
project downward from it in an angular direction, and are intended to prevent
the superstructure from subsiding below its proper level; and, third, in having
the further addition of a block of wood, stone, or metal, e, e, to support the
vertical bar A.
The sleeper and chairs
excepting only that the
instead of two, and the
No 4, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 10 is a longitudinal elevation, Figure 11
a plan, and Figure 12 an end elevation (Sheet B).
represented in these Figures are similar to No. 3,
chair seat is cast with four angular forks d, d, d, d,
longitudinal malleable iron bar A is of a square form supported at the centre
by a cast-iron bearing F, consisting of a circular plate with a square pillar
rising from the centre into a cleft, in the top of which pillar the bar A is
dropped, and there secured by pins e, e.
No. 5, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 13 is a longitudinal elevation, Figure 14
a plan, and Figure 15 an end elevation (Sheet B). The malleable iron
bar A is in this modification of an oblong shape; the chair seat C rests on a
broad platform with two forks d, d, (forming, as before, part of the same
casting), and the connecting pins c, c, are inserted in an oblique direction
corresponding to the external line of the forks.
No. 6, Sleeper and Chairs.--Figure 16 is a longitudinal elevation, Figure 17
a plan, and Figure 18 an end elevation (Sheet B). In this case the cast-iron
chair piece is of larger area than any of those before described, and rests at

page_text: the corners on four strong trivets f, f. f. f, which descend only just beyond the
malleable iron bar A. The chair too, instead of being in the centre, is brought
close to the inner end; and, to give greater strength to the part which imme-
diately supports the chair, there is a buttress piece g which slopes outwards
from it. All the parts are cast as before in one piece. The cast-iron chair
piece and malleable iron bar are connected by vertical screws and nuts.
No. 7, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 19 is a horizontal elevation, Figure 20
a plan, and Figure 21 an end elevation (Sheet C). Here the malleable iron
bar A is much broader and thinner than in any of the preceding cases, and the
chair piece is similar to that of No. 6, with the exception that instead of rest-
ing on four corner trivets it rests on one broad foundation plate h, h.
No. 8, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 22 is a horizontal elevation; Figure 23
a plan, and Figure 24 an end elevation (Sheet C). The malleable iron bar A
is made in this case still broader and thinner than in No. 7, and of a slightly
curved form, with the convex side laid uppermost. It is also carried out at
the two ends beyond the chair pieces inuch further than in any of the varieties
before described. The chair piece has three side supports i, i, i, which are
cast with the same degree of curvature as the bar A, so as to fit closely upon
it, and have at bottom two ledges k, k, by which the bar is prevented from
shifting out of its place, all as particularly shewn in Figure 24.
No. 9, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 25 is a horizontal elevation, Figure 26
a plan, and Figure 27 an end elevation (Sheet C). The malleable iron bar A
is in this case of the same breadth as in No. 8, but of a thickness between
those of No. 7 and No. 8, and is turned up at the edges. It is also carried
out at the ends beyond the chair pieces to the same extent as in No. 8. The
chair seat has a plain foundation plate, with four buttress pieces a, a, a, a, and
the foundation plate has open spaces or grooves in it (as particularly shewn
in Figure 27) to receive the malleable iron bar A, with its turned-up edges.
In all the nine varieties before described, the chair and chair seats, with
their different bearings, are supposed to be cast in one piece, but they may
also cast, if more convenient, in two pieces, that is to say, the chair and chair
seat may be cast separately from the bearings, and the two parts may be
afterwards connected firmly together by screws and nuts.
No. 10, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 28 is a horizontal elevation, Figure 29
a plan, and Figure 30 an end elevation (Sheet D). A¹ is a malleable iron
plate, of a bow form, with two middle ridges r, r, and two end ridges s, s, which
latter are intended to slide into corresponding grooves in the bottom of the
chair seat. The chair and chair seat are intended in this case to be in all
other respects of the ordinary form, and also of cast iron as usual, and are

page_text: therefore not represented in the Drawings. A2 is a straight string piece of
malleable iron, which is connected at the two ends to the ends of the bow-
formed piece A¹ by the male screws c, c, c, c, which take into female screws
tapped in the pieces A' and A².
No. 11, Sleeper and Chairs.-Figure 31 is a horizontal elevation,
Figure 32 a plan, and Figure 33 an end elevation (Sh et D). The only
difference between this and No. 10 is, that the malleable iron piece A' is
made perfectly flat, which renders it unnecessary to have the additional string
piece A².
In each of the varieties before described, the transverse bars A may have
wooden supports at the centre, as shewn in Nos. 1, 2, and 3, or cast-iron ones,
as shewn in No. 4 (with the exception of No. 10), where, from the peculiarity
of the construction, no such support can be required); but in general the
support afforded by the ballast on which these transverse rods are laid, or in
which they are imbedded, will be found sufficient.
And having now described the nature of the said Invention, and the manner
in which the same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim as new and
useful in the Invention communicated to me as aforesaid is, the employment in
the construction of railways of connected sleepers and chairs and chair
bearings, composed partly of malleable iron and partly of cast iron, and of any
of the various forms of construction and connection herein-before described, or
any equivalent modifications thereof.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Twenty-
eighth day of February One thousand eight hundred and fanty thu
CHARLES FREDERICK (L.S.) GUITARD.
AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Twenty-eighth day of February,
in the year of our Lord 1843, the aforesaid Charles Frederick Guitard came
before our said Lady the Queen in Her Chancery, and acknowledged the
Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified,
in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stamped
according to the tenor of the Statute made for that purpose.
Enrolled the Twenty-eighth day of February, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and forty-three.