IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR COMMUNICATING SIGNALS FROM ONE PART OF A RAILWAY TRAIN TO ANOTHER
Year: 1858

page_text: us Invention
cervea Provisional
rotection, out notice to proceed with the
application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Ralph Pickering, at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 24th June
1858.
I, RALPH PICKERING, of Lockerbie, in the County of Dumfries, North
Britain, Railway Inspector, do hereby declare the nature of the said Inven-
tion, for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR COMMUNICATING SIGNALS FROM ONE
PART OF A RAILWAY TRAIN TO ANOTHER," to be as follows, that is to say :-
This Invention relates to certain mechanical arrangements whereby the
passengers and attendants of a railway train are enabled to communicate with
any part of the train with great facility and certainty. In these arrangements
a flexible tube is carried along beneath the bottoms of all the carriages in the
train; this tube being made to terminate in a whistle at the part where the
engine driver stands; this tube is in separate lengths for each carriage, pro-
vision being made for coupling the ends when the train is made up. The
lengths of tube are loosely held in staples or hooks. Each carriage has
extended into it a branch tube from the main line of tubing with a mouthpiece
for blowing into. For the use of passengers each branch tube is brought up
at one end of the carriage, and then turned into the carriage beneath the roof,
along which it passes, being fitted with a sub-branch with a mouthpiece
and tap or valve for each compartment. Either a mouthpiece and a tap
or valve may be fitted at the end of each branch and sub-branch tube,

page_text: pair of bellows fitted with a tap or valve may be used. The office of the
taps is to keep the lines of tubing closed, except at the instant when a signal
is to be given, and at that time the signaller must open the tap of the
mouthpiece which he uses, the rest being all closed. Instead of a tap, a self-
acting valve opening into the tube may be used, so that whilst the inmate of a
carriage can communicate with the tube, no blast can escape from the tube
into the carriage. Wherever there is a branch tube let out of the main tube
two taps are fitted upon the main tube, one on each side of the part where the
branch emerges, so that any carriage with a branch tube may be set in the
train with either end first, closing the tap which is behind the last branch
tube in the train.
All the taps in the main tube are of course kept continually open, except
that one behind the last branch in the train. The main tubes on the carriages
are coupled by screw junctions. A short piece of inflexible tube is attached
to the end of the main elastic tube at each end on each carriage by drawing
the end of the latter over it, or in any other convenient way; and the projecting
end of this inflexible tube is screwed exteriorly for a short distance. These
screwed ends are fitted with an enveloping nut or screwed thimble, to effect
the junctions of the tube ends at each carriage; this nut being fitted with a
pendant weighted lever to turn it by, and to prevent it from turning by the
action of the carriages.
The tube beneath the engine and tender is made of such materials as will
stand the heat well, and the engine portion is brought beneath the footboard
and up through it to a suitable height for a whistle; or, this tube may be
taken to the outside of the engine frame, and then brought up. the outside of
the engine ending near to and in front of where the driver stands. In this
way various signals may be given by parties in the train as may be agreed on.