OR IMPROVED MEANS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PREVENTING RAILWAY TRAINS FROM LEAVING THE RAILS, AND PREVENTING COLLISIONS ON RAILWAYS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Jules Adrien Nicolet at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th November 1880.
CHARLES JULES ADRIEN NICOLET, of Bruxelles, in the Kingdom of Belgium.
"NEW OR IMPROVED MEANS OF AND APPARATUS FOR PREVENTING RAILWAY
TRAINS FROM LEAVING THE RAILS, AND PREVENTING COLLISIONS ON RAILWAYS."
This Invention relates to new or improved means of and apparatus for preventing
railway trains from leaving the rails, and preventing collisions on railways.
For this purpose the following means are employed:
For preventing railway trains from leaving the rails, the rails will be provided
throughout their length with a slot which, when the rails are in position, are inside
the line..
Each railway carriage and locomotive will be provided with vertical iron bars,
terminated by iron cramps, which cramps may slide in the slot of the rails, and as
many of these said vertical iron bars as required will be employed.
For preventing collisions between railway trains, four telegraph wires are placed
on the line, two of the said wires being placed on the right side of the right rail,
and the two others on the left side of the left rail. These wires may lie upon the
ground or be suspended in a similar manner to ordinary telegraph wires. Each
locomotive or one of the carriages of each train is provided with an electric apparatus,
that is to say, an electric battery and a bell or set of bells with its or their
connection.
The electric battery may be placed either on the left side or right side of the
train; if it is placed on the right side, then the bell apparatus will be on the left,
and this will be alike in every train; four pipes made of porcelain, covered by
metallic tubes, or even simply metallic tubes, will be fixed on the carriage or
locomotive through which pipes will pass the wires; two pipes will be placed at
the right on the side of the battery, and the two others at the left on the side of
the bell apparatus. Through the said pipes will pass the wires from the battery,
and the wires of the bell apparatus. Through the said pipes will pass the wires
from the battery and the wires of the bell apparatus.

page_text: At the end of each of the wires passing through the pipes is attached a sort of
thimble made of the same metal as the wire itself, and which can be pushed by
means of a spring placed inside the pipes, in order that the thimbles at the end of
the wires from the battery could through the action of the said springs touch the
conducting wires placed upon the ground, and the thimbles at the end of the wires
from the bell apparatus could do the same in such a way that a train on the same
line may be made aware of the presence of the train in front.
The wires of the battery will impart their electricity to the conducting wires as
soon as they are in communication. The conducting wires will transmit their
electricity to the bell apparatus as soon as the wires of the latter will be in contact
with the conducting wires. The speed of the railway trains may be increased with
the use of the said electric apparatus.
Instead of a bell apparatus, use may be made of a telegraphic apparatus, through
which two trains on the same line may communicate with one another.