IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ACTUATING SIGNALLING APPA- RATUS ON RAILWAYS BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edmund Edwards at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 27th October 1881. A communication
from abroad by Etienne Lesbros, of Valence, in the Republic of France.
EDMUND EDWARDS, of the Firm of Edwards and Co., Patent Agents and
Engineers, of 40, Southampton Buildings, Chancery Lane, in the County of
Middlesex. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR ACTUATING SIGNALLING APPA-
RATUS ON RAILWAYS BY MEANS OF ELECTRICITY." [A communication from
abroad by Etienne Lesbros, of Valence, in the Republic of France.]
This apparatus relates to discs or other signals, the position of which can be
varied as desired, used on railways, and actuated by an attendant at a distance
from the place where they are fixed.
It has for its objects improved methods of constructing and arranging mechanism
actuated by electricity, by means of which the position of the signals can be varied
as desired.
I take a framework of any convenient form or material having bearings in which
revolves a wheel provided with teeth at its circumference, which gear into and
actuate an intermediate pinion having nine teeth, which itself actuates a second
pinion having eighteen teeth.
The axis of the last described pinion has fixed upon it a double ended lever, one
end of which rests upon the upper end of a hinged detent connected to the arma-
ture of an electro magnet of any suitable kind in such manner that when a current
of electricity is passed through the electro magnet, the armature is attracted and
the detent is withdrawn from the end of the lever. The toothed wheel first
described is provided with a barrel, round which is wound a cord actuated by a
sufficiently heavy weight by which the wheels are set in rotation, when the detent
is released as described. The weight can be wound up in the usual well
understood way when necessary.
The hinged detent described is made double, the two parts moving backward
and forward together, but one part is slightly longer than the other and is notched
out so that the ends of the double lever can pass between them, when they are
Din 971

page_text: withdrawn by the electro-magnet. When one end of the lever, therefore, is resting
upon the end of the shorter part of the detent, if the latter be withdrawn the
pinion, together with the double ended lever, are rotated through half a revolution
until the other end of the lever is stopped by the end of the longer part of the
detent. When the current of electricity is stopped the armature is withdrawn by
a spring, and the detent returns to its place, withdrawing its longer part from
under the lever and allowing the latter to fall upon its shorter part. This opera-
tion can be repeated as often as necessary, the pinion making half a revolution
every time a current of electricity is passed through the electro magnet.
At another part of the circumference of the toothed wheel it actuates another
pinion having eighteen teeth, upon the axis of which are fixed two excentrics or
cranks, arranged so that their strokes are opposite to each other, and to these
excentrics or cranks are connected rods, the other ends of which are jointed to the
ends of a lever, upon which the discs or signals are fixed or by which they are
actuated. The proportions of the lengths of the excentrics or cranks, and of the
disc or signal lever, are so arranged that when the excentrics or cranks move
through half a revolution the disc or signal is also moved through the space
required.
The pinion which actuates the excentrics or cranks having the same number of
teeth as the pinion which carries the double ended lever, also makes half a
revolution every time a current of electricity passes through the electro-magnet.
The number of teeth in the pinions may be varied if the proper relative
proportion between them is maintained.
The manipulation of the apparatus is the same whether it is desired to move the
disc or signal to either danger or safety.