IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR COUPLING AND UN-COUPLING RAILWAY CARRIAGES AND LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Richardson and Charles Green-
wood at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 30th September
1882.
JOHN RICHARDSON and CHARLES GREENWOOD both of Harrogate in the County
of York "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR COUPLING AND UN-COUPLING
RAILWAY CARRIAGES AND LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES
This invention has for its object improvements in apparatus for coupling and
un-coupling. railway carriages and locomotive engines.
For this purpose we arrange at each end of each carriage vehicle or engine a
draw-bar, fixed in the ordinary manner in every respect, but in place of the usual
book and chain we forge a solid head upon the draw bar and through this we fix
a loose pin or horizontal axis with a hook or latch and an eye or link upon it.
The hook has an incline on its head or face and its nose turned down and is fixed
loosely upon the axis pin by a female joint. The eye is fixed similarly upon the
same axis pin so as to rest upon the back or top part of the hook as a weight;
the eye has two stops forged upon its joints the bottom or principal stop is for the
eye to rest upon in a horizontal position, the top stop prevents its turning up too
far upon the axis pin; these stops or shoulders rest against the face plate of the
sole beam through which the draw-bar slides.
The hook is free to drop into a vertical position or it may be turned upon the
axis until it is stopped by the eye, at the top stop; or by a suitable check spring
for it to abut against.
The various positions of the hook and eye are governed by compound cranked
or set levers (hand wheels or reins over pullies) on a cross shaft extending to either
side of the carriage or vehicle or engine tender or inside a guard's van.
This cross shaft or horizontal axis extends across the carriage frame under the;
buffers at both ends of the vehicle, upon the centre of this cross-shaft we arrange.
and fix a cranked compound lever which has a forward lifting motion and is so
weighted or poised as to balance itself and drop quickly out of action when.
required or it may be turned upwards and so as to lift the hook and eye upon the
draw bar head at both ends of the cross shaft we arrange a handle or lever which
works in a quadrant guide provided with holes and a pin hung to a chain for

page_text: setting the lever and hook and eye out of action so that the hook and eye can be
readily raised or lowered to any position required for the purpose of coupling or
uncoupling or holding up the hook to prevent its coupling or setting the hook so
that it will couple automatically if desired.
In fixing the coupler it is clearly within so as to be protected by the buffers.
from concussion and in the case of spring buffers by simply adjusting the position
of the coupler action to the extent of buffer stroke or within it the tightening is
accomplished automatically with the coupling by the buffer heads being brought
together and compressed against the resistance of their spring until the connection
is made by the coupler, the spring is then relaxed by withdrawing the pressure
and so the coupling is tightened up whilst the buffer rods are left sufficiently free
to play but in this case of course the same force would be requisite to uncouple a
connection so adjusted so by preference we adjust the coupler eye just clearly
within the ends of the buffers when it is set to receive the hook (in all cases to
apply) whatever length or kind of buffer or extent of stroke. The front of the
eye (which in section is round) has a considerable breadth of sweep to provide for
variation of point of connection upon a curved railway. The inclined face of hook
and its great length of nose favors the action of this coupler to the variation in the
height of buffers or draw-bars.
When as for passenger carriages it is required to tighten up the coupling we
adopt the following arrangement; -The draw-bar which is already described carries
the coupler is arranged to slide through the sole beam of the carriage frame and
has a fast shoulder plate on it for the eye-stops to rest upon when the draw-bar
head is moved out by the screw to receive the opposite hook and a fast pin through
the draw-bar behind the sole beam prevents it sliding out too far, this draw-bar is
made in pieces and is connected by two swivel nuts and a right and left handed
screw the middle of this screwed piece is plain but slotted and is free to slide and
receives a feather in the boss of the incline, skew, bevil, mitre, worm and toothed.
or cogged gearing wheel which is carried on a frame and gears with another
similar but larger wheel to gain speed upon a transverse shaft or axis also carried
by the under frame of vehicle and extending to either side this cross shaft has hand
wheels at both ends either of which is turned to tighten or slacken the coupling
at will.
The inner extremity of this draw. bar is fixed to the draw spring as is usual in
most rolling stock required to be run with tight couplings.
This then being the arrangement its operation is as follows:-
Supposing it to be desired to couple two vehicles provided with this combined
apparatus the carriages or vehicles are brought together by means of the engine or
otherwise and an attendant by means of our hand lever at the side sets the hook
and eye mechanism of the coupler so that when the carriages meet, the incline on
the face of the hook of one vehicle comes against the eye of the other vehicle;
this causes the hook to raise until its point or nose end is past the loop of the eye
and it then falls down into it and so the hook and eye become linked latched or
fastened together automatically.
When it is desired to uncouple the vehicles the attendant lifts out the hook from
the eye by means of the hand lever and can if required temporarily fix them in.
this position out of work by setting the lever at the sides with the quadrant pin
so as to hold up the set lift.
Our invention renders this dangerous operation easy certain and safe by night
as in day-light and it is thus seen that all the operations of coupling uncoupling
and tightening or slackening also fly-shunting may be performed without its
being necessary for an attendant to enter between the carriages or to cross the
rails for these purposes.
And in order to enable vehicles not provided with our coupler to be connected
with ours we provide each vehicle end with a short supplementary chain
terminating with an ordinary hook for taking into our eye-link and hanging on
to their ordinary draw-bar hook and for this purpose we use up the old coupling

page_text: chains as an alternative in case of a break down, a very remote contingency in
our case.
This coupling may be used as a slip coupler by means of a lever fixed through
the floor of the guard's van and fixed so as to lift the compound set-lever upon
the cross-shaft and so enable the guard to perform the uncoupling of his van
from the inside and so drop the rear portion of the train if required as is usual
without stopping the engine. In like manner by means of a long guide rod and
levers the driver or stoker upon a locomotive engine may attach or detach his
engine at will without leaving his post on the foot plates.