IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN PASSENGERS, GUARDS, AND DRIVERS IN RAILWAY TRAINS
Year: 1865

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Mather at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 20th January
1865.
I, WILLIAM MATHER, of Salford Iron Works, Manchester, do hereby
declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR
FACILITATING COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN PASSENGERS, GUARDS, AND DRIVERS IN
RAILWAY TRAINS," to be as follows:
This Invention' has for its object improvements in apparatus for facilitating
communications between passengers, guards, and drivers in railway trains.
For these purposes in the guard's van is a small air chamber made of iron or
other suitable material in which the air is compressed to any required pressure,
and by preference by means of water forced in by a simple hand force pump.
From this air chamber a small tube or pipe is taken through the roof of the
van and connected to a similar pipe which lies along the top of each of the
carriages of a train, and also on the tender. These pipes or tubes are perma-
nently fixed, and the connection between carriage and carriage is readily
effected by means of india-rubber, or other suitable flexible tubes and couplings
capable of being quickly joined to the fixed pipes or tubes. In this way a
complete communication is made between the guard's van and the tender, and
also with the intervening carriages. The tubes or pipes on the carriages are
furnished with small escape valves placed at distances apart corresponding to
the divisions or compartments of each carriage; these valves are capable of
being opened suddenly when a cord or pull on the inside is slackened or

page_text: otherwise suitably acted on so as to cause a weighted lever, to which the cord
or pull is attached, to fall. The lever is arranged with a weight, or it may be
a spring at one end and a signal board or instrument at the other, so that
when the lever falls the board or instrument assumes an upright or elevated
position, and thereby indicates the particular compartment from which the
alarm has been given. And the attention of the guard will be called by the
air which is under pressure rushing out from the tubes or pipes, and from the
air chamber, thereby decreasing the pressure of air in the chamber in the van,
and also in a like chamber on the tender when it is desired that the attention
both of the guard and the engine driver should be called to a signal made by
a passenger. This reduction of pressure is made to act upon a lever which
liberates the catch of an alarm bell, and the guard's attention is immediately
aroused. On looking along the train from either end the signal will be
observed, and the precise compartment indicated. The passenger has only to
unhook the end of the cord from a ring near the top or other convenient part
of the interior of the carriage in order to open the valve. The escape valve
when once opened can only be closed again from the outside. If necessary, as
an extra alarm, the escape valve night take the form of a whistle, the com-
munication between guard and engine driver, or vice versa, may be made by
simply allowing the air to escape by a tap placed at hand for the purpose,
when both bells, namely, the guard's and the engine drivers, will sound. The
air in the air chamber may be replenished at pleasure by the guard by a few
strokes of the hand pump. The water used to compress the air may be run
back into a small reservoir and again pumped back to give the necessary
pressure inside the air chamber; the pressure will be shewn upon a gauge as
a guide to the guard.