AN IMPROVED METHOD OF AND APPARATUS " FOR CONTROLLING THE SUPPLY OF GAS TO RAILWAY-CARRIAGE AND OTHER LAMPS OR BURNERS
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Robert Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 11th October 1883. Communicated to
him from abroad by Michel Ludovic Gaillard, of Paris, France, Engineer.
WILLIAM ROBERT LAKE, of the firm of Haseltine, Lake, and Co, Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London, "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF AND APPARATUS
"
FOR CONTROLLING THE SUPPLY OF GAS TO RAILWAY-CARRIAGE AND OTHER LAMPS
OR BURNERS [A communication to him from abroad by Michel Ludovic Gaillard,
of Paris, France, Engineer.]
This invention relates to a method of controlling the supply of gas to railway
carriage and other lamps or burners by means of screens or shades employed with
the said lamps, or burners.
The gas lamps ordinarily employed for lighting railway carriages have in some
cases a double screen or curtain for concealing or partly concealing the light,
arranged in such a manner that one part of the screen enables the light to be
concealed from the passengers upon one side of a compartment; and it is necessary
to close the two parts of the screen in order to completely obscure the light.
The problem hitherto sought to be solved by the railway companies is to so
arrange the lamps that the gas will be fully turned on when the two parts of the
screen are open or when only one part is open, and that only a small gas flame will
be produced when the two parts of the screen are closed.
It is the solution of this problem which forms the object of the present invention.
:- The gas
I effect this object in the manner hereinafter described, that is to say:-
burner is supplied with gas by means of two concentric cocks or plugs which each
have a sufficient opening to furnish alone the quantity of gas necessary to produce
a full sized flame; each of these cocks or plugs is controlled by one part of the
movable screen, and one or both of them is or are, moreover, provided with a small
supplementary aperture or apertures which, in case of the complete closing of the
screen, will supply sufficient gas for a small flame to be produced.
This fundamental principle constitutes the essential and distinctive characteristic
of the said invention.

page_text: In carrying the said invention into practice, according to one method I provide a
cock having two plugs one within the other; the said plugs are either operated one
from one side and the other from the opposite side, or they are both operated from
the same side, by levers actuated by means of rods or levers forming parts of the
two portions of the screen. The same result can be obtained by causing the said
plugs to be acted upon directly by the axes of the said rods or levers or by means
of gearing. The said cock may be made in various manners. The two plugs are
arranged to turn in opposite directions to effect an obturation. The gas, however,
still passes (but in a very small quantity, so that a small flame is produced) by
means of an aperture either in the exterior plug or in the interior plug. Or a
small groove may be made in one of the plugs for this purpose.