Improvements in Couplings for Railway Carriages and Wagons.
Year: 1899

page_text: DE MOLLICATION.
Improvements in Couplings for Railway Carriages and Wagons.
I, JOHN WILLIAM COTTIER, of Newfield Farm, Great Harwood, in the County of
Lancaster, Collier, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as
follows:
The improvements which form the subject of this invention relates to means
5 for coupling or uncoupling railway carriages and wagons from either side of the
vehicle so as to obviate the necessity of passing in between the buffers by those
engaged in making up a train or shunting.
In applying my invention to a vehicle that is fitted with the ordinary form
of draw bar and hook, I pass through the eye, or I rest in the slot in the shank
of said draw hook, a short transverse bar, whose ends are supported in eyes
formed on rods that extend longitudinally through the headstock and cross bar,
and secured by nuts against a spring or springs within the underframe of the
vehicle. I weld or otherwise firmly attach to the aforesaid short transverse bar,
two rods of convenient length, one on each side of and a short distance from the
draw hook, and connect the free ends of said rods to a draw link by means of a
short transverse bolt which passes through the sides of the link. but nearer to
one end of the link than the other; I attach a balance weight to the shorter end
of the link to counterbalance the longer end.
I fit a bar transversely between slotted brackets that are attached to the sole
bars of the vehicle, said bar passing under the buffers and through eyes that are
connected with the eyes which support the ends of the short transverse bar herein-
before named. At each side of the draw hook, I fit toothed wheels on each of
the aforesaid transverse bars, the wheels on one transverse bar gearing into the
wheels on the other transverse bar, but capable of being placed out of gear by
sliding the lower bar a little towards either side of the vehicle: I fit a hand
wheel or equivalent to each end of the aforesaid lower transverse bar, by which
o turn said bar, and by the intervention of the gear wheels thereon, turn the
ereinbefore described short transverse bar, by which the rods, that are attached
hereto and the link connected therewith are raised; the longer end of said link
vill be further raised by the action of the balance weight on the short end of
he link. and when said longer end is in position over the hook of the adjacent
agon, the hand wheel at the side of the vehicle is released. and the aforesaid
nk will fall onto the hook of the vehicle to be coupled; the vehicles can be
ncoupled from the outside of the wagon by a reverse action of the hand wheel.
Dated this 2nd day of August 1899.
GEO. DAVIES & SON,
Agents for the Applicant, 4, St. Ann's Square. Manchoctor

page_text: Improvements in Couplings for Railway Carriages and Wagons.
I, JOHN WILLIAM COTTIER, of Newfield Farm, Great Harwood, in the County of
Lancaster, Collier, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what
manner the same is to be performed to be particularly described and ascertained
in and by the following statement:-
The improvements which form the subject of this invention relates to means
for coupling or uncoupling railway carriages and wagons from either side of the
vehicle so as to obviate the necessity of passing in between the buffers by those
engaged in making up a train or shunting.
In the accompanying drawing my invention is shown applied to the under-
frame of any ordinary dead buffer wagon but is alike applicable to vehicles pro-
vided with spring buffers.
Fig. 1 is a side view and Fig. 2 a plan of part of a railway wagon under frame
with my invention applied, and Fig. 3 is an end view of the same.
In these views the coupling is shown inactive.
Fig. 4 is a side view representing two ends of wagons in proximity and the
coupling of one wagon about being placed on the hook of the adjacent wagon.
Similar letters on the several views shown denote similar parts.
In applying my invention to a vehicle fitted with the ordinary form of draw
bar as a and hook a I pass through the eye or rest in a slot formed in the
shank a of said draw hook, a short transverse bar as c whose ends are supported
in eyes as d formed on rods as e that pass through the headstock f and are
secured by nuts g with a spring j intervening; or said, rods may be extended and
pass through the cross bar k. I weld or otherwise firmly attach to the aforesaid
short transverse bar C two rods as of convenient length one on
each side of and a short distance from the draw hook and connect
the free ends of said rods to a draw link m by means of a short transverse
T bolt n.
I attach a balance weight m to the free end of said T bolt which
is shorter than the link m and thereby counterbalance said link.
I fit a bar as p transversely between brackets q that are attached to the frame
of the vehicle said bars passing under the buffers and being fitted at each end
with a hand wheel r or an equivalent. I fit a toothed wheel u in a convenient
position on the aforesaid transverse bar 7 of a suitable size to gear into a similar.
wheel v fitted on the transverse rod c but capable of being placed out of gear
by sliding the bar p a little to one side of the vehicle.
In order to couple from the outside two wagons provided with my improvement,
the toothed wheels u and vare put in gear as shown in Fig. 3, the hand wheel r
being close to the vehicle on one side of the frame and a short distance away on
the other side.
One of the hand wheels is then turned in the direction indicated by the arrow
in Fig. 4 which raises the links at the same time winding the chain ton to
an enlarged part 1 of the bar p; the end of the chain being connected to the
centre of the tail of the T bolt n..When the link m has by these means
been placed on the hook of the adjoining wagon the wheel u is withdrawn from
contact with the wheel and the link will fall into the bend of the draw hook
of the adjoining wagon.
If the draw hooks of adjacent wagons are not opposite each other when stand-
ing on a curve or from other cause the draw links may be moved a little towards
either side by the fork on the transverse rod a¹, the bar p being also moved.
When the wagons require to be uncoupled the hand wheel r is turned a little

page_text: ne direction indicated by the arrow until the link m has been raised from the
hook of the adjacent wagon as shown in Fig. 4: said wagon can then be removed
when the hand wheel r can be released; the link will then hang down and the
link m will be caused by the balance weight m* to be turned up against the link
as shown in Figs. 1 and 2.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what
I claim is:
-
1. For coupling and uncoupling railway carriages and wagons from either side
of the vehicle the combination with an ordinary draw hook of draw links as
fitted on a transverse bar passing through an eye or a slot in the draw bar
shank and a balanced draw link as
verse bar gearing into
m a toothed wheel on said trans-
a toothed wheel fitted
proximity thereto and operated by a wheel or handle on each side of the vehicle,
on 2 transverse bar in
and means for adjusting the lateral position of the coupling all substantially as
shown and described.
2. For coupling and uncoupling railways carriages and wagons from either side
of the vehicle the mechanism substantially as hereinbefore described and
Ilustrated.
Dated this 24th day of October 1800.
GEO. DAVIES & SON,
Agents for the Applicant, 4, St. Ann's Square, Manchester