Improvements in Acetylene Gas Producing Apparatus for Railway Cars and the like.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 26th Jan., 1899-Accepted, 18th Mar., 1899
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Acetylene Gas Producing Apparatus for Railway
Cars and the like.
We, FERDINAND DUDERSTADT, of 6, Johannisgasse, Director, and MAX KANDLER,
of 18A, Mittelstrasse, Engineer, both in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony, German
Empire, do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the
same is to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by
the following statement:-
This invention relates to acetylene gas producing apparatus and has more par-
ticularly for its object to provide an improved apparatus of this for maintaining
the lights thereon.
With this object in view our invention consists of a cylindrical casing con-
taining an inner water-reservoir and a carburet holder, suitably divided into suc-
cessively operating sections by the flow of the water of said reservoir and in
accordance with the needs of consumption, said cylindrical or outer casing serving
at the same time as a gas holder to hold the gas before it flows to the burners on
the car, and the apparatus being so constructed and arranged as to occupy small
space and to allow the various parts thereof to be easily and readily taken apart
for charging water and carburet and cleansing, repairing or any other purposes.
And in order that our invention may be thoroughly understood we now proceed
to describe the accompanying drawing thereof, reference being had to letters and
figures marked thereon.
Fig. 1, is a vertical longitudinal sectional view of the apparatus constructed in
accordance with our invention.
Fig. 2, is a cross sectional view of the improved apparatus.
Fig. 3, is an inner view of the removable cover to which a gas purifying.
apparatus is secured.
A indicates a cylindrical metal casing which may be secured to the underside of
the car bottom in any suitable way; one end of said casing is closed while the other
end thereof is open and adapted to be closed in operation by means of a removable
cover C, as hereinafter described. Within casing A are secured flat brace-bars a
arranged at suitable intervals and serving to support the water reservoir B, pre-
ferably made of semi-circular form in cross-section, as in Fig. 2. Said water
reservoir B is held against lateral movement by arched bars a suitably secured
to said brace-bars a, and against longitudinal movement by angle bars a² secured
to the walls of the casing A at the innermost end thereof and by sliding bolt K,
which may be of any preferred construction and locked in any suitable way. The
water reservoir will be filled through inlet R provided at the fore end thereof and
adapted to be shut off in operation.
To the inner brace bars a near the walls of casing A, are secured suitable
brackets a³, supporting rails N attached thereto and over which run rollers M
journalled in the walls of the carburet holder D (Fig. 2). The inner end of this
carburet holder abuts, when in place, against an angle iron a secured to the walls
of casing A, or may be limited in its movement by any suitable part, and said

page_text: carburet holder is then locked at its fore end by means of an easily removable
sliding bolt K, which may be similar to sliding bolt K for locking water reser-
voir B.
Said carburet holder D is divided into two halves 1 and D2 slightly held out
of contact by a slightly inclined fat metal bar (Fig. 2,) and rigidly secured
together by angle bars & running around said holder-halves 1 and D. The latter
are divided into a plurality of sections 1, 2, 3, 4, to receive perforated boxes or
wire baskets containing the carburet, said sections being open at their upper
end and connected to the space G between the halves D₁ and D2, by water inlet
holes L and L, alternately arranged on each side of said space and at some dis-
tance from inclined bottom thereof.
The water reservoir B is provided at its innermost end with a syphon E having
a stop cock F and through which the water may flow into said space G, the smaller
branch of said syphon discharging into the same as shown in Fig. 1, while the
larger branch of said syphon communicates with the outer air. The stop cock F
may be operated through a suitable door F provided in the bottom plate of
casing A. The flat bar g forming the bottom of space or water conduit Gis
inclined from J toward H, and the water inlet holes LLP arranged, so that the
water from reservoir B flows along said bottom y until it reaches the lowermost
point thereof, when it enters section 1 of carburet holder D', to convert the
carburet contained therein to acetylene gas, then the water enters section 1 of
carburet holder D and so on, successively all the sections of the carburet holders.
As afore stated, casing A 18 open at its fore end and adapted to be tightly closed
by means of a suitable cover C, preferably secured thereto by winged screws c
and provided with a handle c¹ or the like. Said cover carries a gas purifying
box Û, suitably secured thereto and which may be of any well known construction;
the acetylene gas produced in the carburet holders and contained in casing A, is
forced to pass through said box before reaching pipe P leading therefrom and
removably connected with the pipe (not shown) leading the gas to the burners.
It will be seen from the foregoing construction that atter removing the cover U
and unlocking sliding bolt K, the carburet holder D may be easily withdrawn
from casing A for removing the residues and charging fresh carburet.
The improved apparatus operates as follows: after shutting off stop cock F',
the water reservoir B is filled with water through inlet R and the latter then shut
off. Now the carburet holder D1, D2, charged with carburet, will be introduced
into casing A and locked by means of sliding bolt K, and the cover C with the
purifying apparatus tightly secured to casing A. Thus the apparatus is ready
for use.
Upon the opening of stop cock F, the water will slowly flow into space G and
along the inclined bottom y thereof to the lowermost inlet hole L', through which
it enters section 1 of carburet holder 1) to produce acetylene gas. The pressure of
the gas rising by reason of an insufficient consumption thereof, the syphon E will
cease to discharge water into space G, and by further increase of said pressure the
water in said syphon will be forced back until it reaches the curved bottom there-
of; the apparatus is constructed and arranged that the pressure within casing A
will then be equal to the pressure of a column of water of 30 cm., provided that
water reservoir B be still filled with water. A still further increase of the gas
pressure within casing A forces the gas to flow through syphon E into the outer
air, which scarcely occurs, the different carburet sections acting but one after
the other to produce acetylene gas, and the water being only admitted in accordance
with the consumption of the gas.
The vibrations of the vehicle do not influence the perfect and accurate operation
of the apparatus by reason of the small size of the water conduits. As the lights
of the vehicle are continually maintained, the different carburet sections will be
successively thrown in action to produce acetylene gas, and finally the pressure of
said gas becomes lower than that required for the maintaining of the lights,
whereby the lighting will be lessened, which indicates that the apparatus is to be

page_text: recharged. The duration of lighting of one charge may previously be determined
by the amount of carburet of said charge, or the complete consumption of said
carburet may be automatically notified by any suitable alarms or signal device.
As it is obvious that many changes in the construction and relative arrange
ment of parts may be resorted to without departing from the spirit and scope of
our invention, we would have it understood that we do not restrict ourselves to
the particular construction and arrangement of parts shown and described, but
that such changes and equivalents may be substituted therefor.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what
we claim is: :-
1. In an acetylene gas producing apparatus for railway cars or the like, the
combination with a closed cylindrical casing of a water reservoir arranged in
said casing, a carburet holder, and a suitable gas purifying apparatus secured to the
inside of the removably mounted cover of said casing, the latter serving at the
same time as a gas holder, substantially as and for the purposes specified.
2. In an acetylene gas producing apparatus for railway cars or the like, the
combination of a water reservoir arranged within the gas holder and provided
with a syphon to discharge water into the carburet holder, substantially as and
for the purpose specified.
3. In an acetylene gas producing apparatus the combination of a carburet
holder consisting of two halves held out of contact by a feed passage and divided
into a plurality of sections by means of cross partitions, said carburet holder being
arranged within the gas holder and adapted to be easily and readily withdrawn
from the same, substantially as and for the purpose specified.
4. In an acetylene gas producing apparatus, for railway cars or the like, the
combination of an inclined feed water passage provided between the carburet
holders and acting so that the water, the flow of which is controlled by the pressure
of the gas in the syphon, flows alternately and successively into the different
carburet sections to produce acetylene gas from the lowermost point to the upper-
most point of said passage in accordance with the consumption of the gas, sub-
stantially as and for the purpose specified.
Dated this 26th dow of Tanva
1900
J. P. BAYLY,
.18, Fulham Place, London, W., Agent for the Applicants.