IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR STOPPING OR RETARDING. RAILWAY TRAINS
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Gilbert Amable Laurent at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 20th
March 1867.
I, GILBERT AMABLE LAURENT, of No. 22, Rue des Garceaux, Moulins, in the
Empire of France, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said
Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR STOPPING OR RETARDING.
RAILWAY TRAINS," to be as follows, that is to say :-
This Invention consists in improved mechanical arrangements for stopping
almost instantaneously and without shock, or slowly, at the will of the brake-
man, a train when running at a great speed, thus lessening the liability to
accidents on railways.
By my improved arrangements the rotative movement of the running
wheels is, when it is desired to stop the train or lessen its speed, replaced by
a sliding motion on another set of wheels or segments of wheels, thus avoiding
accidents from the train running off the rails through broken. axles, declivities
in the ground, or other causes.
To carry out my Invention I fix along each side of the engine and carriages
a flat bar of iron forming a strong frame and carrying the same number of.
supplementary axles as of ordinary axles; these supplementary axles are
provided with wheels or double segments of wheels placed excentrically, and
serve, when required, to lift the carriages a certain. height above the rails;
these wheels are moved on to the rails by a coupling connecting rod which.
joins them together, and by a transmission rod which is fixed underneath to a
regulator screw nut sliding between guides and fixed horizontally to each

page_text: carriage; this screw nut is made with close spirals, and is passed through by a
shaft of the same length as each carriage; this shaft is screw-tapped at the
part passing through the screw nut, and is provided at each extremity with
sliding joints easily connected, by means of which it is connected to the shafts
of the carriages which follow and precede that to which it is fixed, so as to
yield to the movements of the following and preceding carriages, thus all the
shafts form one common shaft under the control of the driver. In the loco-
motive this common shaft is terminated by a bevil wheel gearing with another
mounted on a vertical rod carrying the lever arm or wheel serving to transmit
the motion given by the brakeman. In the last carriage the other extremity
of this shaft is terminated by a clutch which serves, in case of a dangerous
counter-movement, to receive if required the action of the brakeman for
transmitting it to the other carriages. By the arrangements above described
the brakeman can, when required, lower the supplementary wheels on the
line. When the supplementary wheels have been lowered by the action of
the connecting rod, worked either by the brake apparatus of the locomotive or
by that of the last carriage, they rub against the rails, and by reason of their
excentric form slightly raise the carriages and butt against the principal wheels,
neither one nor the other can then turn, and the whole train sliding instead of
rolling is forced to stop.