IMPROVEMENTS IN COUPLINGS AND FITTINGS CONNECTED THEREWITH, FOR RAILWAY CARRIAGES, TRUCKS, WAGONS, HUTCHES, OR OTHER VEHICLES
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Pearson at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 9th April 1883.
•
ROBERT PEARSON, of Glasgow, in the County of Lanark, North Britain,
"IMPROVEMENTS IN COUPLINGS AND FITTINGS CONNECTED THEREWITH, FOR
RAILWAY CARRIAGES, TRUCKS, WAGONS, HUTCHES, OR OTHER VEHICLES,"
This said Invention has reference to certain improvements upon the arrange-
ments of couplings for which Provisional Protection has been granted to James
Anderson and John Darling N° 6,115
and also to the said John Darling
January 20
1888
December 22
1882
N° 331
; by which improvements the said couplings will be made more
simple and applicable to different constructions of trucks, wagons, or hutches, for
various kinds of railway and other traffic, also enabling these coupling hooks to be
more conveniently and efficiently controlled or put into or out of acting position.
One of the present improvements for vertically engaging and disengaging the
automatically and laterally oscillating and jointed spring coupling hooks of the
said former Inventions, for railway carriages, trucks, or wagons when they cannot
be coupled or uncoupled laterally, consists in a simple arrangement of light
horizontal oscillating shaft carried in bearings in the longitudinal main frames,
preferably fitted below the bottom flooring and above the stem or rods of each
hook, Each shaft would have a hand lever on its outer end at the side of the
frame with spring catch and a setting and retaining vertical segment with notches
for the catch entering, or other ordinary equivalent retainer; while the inner end
of this shaft would have a lever formed or secured on it, projecting down and so
connected to the rod of the hook,-by an open eye through which it would slide,
or by a link which would allow the rod to have longitudinal motion,-as to bo
depressed down to take the hook out of action, or be raised up into action with the
other hook, while the carriages, trucks, or wagous were close together either at
rest or in motion, by the action of the said haud lever at the side of the carriage,
with the greatest convenience, and be locked in these engaged or disengaged
positions, (all in addition to the automatic mode of coupling them by the engine
driving one wagon and hook up towards one at rest,)

page_text: Another improved arrangement of mechanism for engaging and disengaging
these said new or improved coupling hooks laterally, as suitable for coal wagons
and wheeled butches, and other such like vehicles, which have these hooks jointed
to the ends of the draw rods or other secure fixture outside the end frames,-that
they may be freely coupled and uncoupled by turning the hooks laterally on the
said joint, having a retaining spring which maintains the hooks in the locked or
unlocked position, consists in mounting a horizontal bell-crank lever on a fixed
stud on the under side of the frame, one to each end hook. The fulcrum of this
lever is placed so that the short arm of the lever projects longitudinally at the
back or outer edge of its hook, and has a stud, projecting up from its acting end,
to work into a slot formed on the outer edge of the hook. While the long arm of
this lever projects out laterally to the one side beyond the frame of the wagon or
wheeled hutch, working in a slotted guide stop, and having a knee piece projecting
up at its outer end, to answer as a hand lever or a foot push on low wagons or
hutches, so that when this lever is pushed in the one direction towards the end of
the vehicle, the short arm by its pin and slot on the hook, turns the hook on its
joint into the centre, in the hooking position. While when turned in the other
direction it turns the hook round laterally quite under the frame out of the
coupling position.
These new or improved coupling and uncoupling arrangements of mechanism,
and their connections or fittings do away with all the arrangements outside the
end of the carriages of the fortner Provisionally Protected Inventions, which were
found very inconvenient in goods and mineral wagons and hutches