AN IMPROVED METHOD OF ENABLING THE GUARD OR OTHER PERSON TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE ENGINE DRIVER, OR VICE VERSA, IN RAILWAY CARRIAGES, OR RAILWAY TRAINS, OR SIMILAR CONVEYANCES BY MEANS OF ELEC- TRICITY
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Taylor at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 21st March
1861.
I, CHARLES TAYLOR, the younger, of the Town and County of the Town of
Nottingham, Doctor of Medicine, do hereby declare the nature of the
said Invention for "AN IMPROVED METHOD OF ENABLING THE GUARD OR OTHER
PERSON TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE ENGINE DRIVER, OR VICE VERSA, IN RAILWAY
CARRIAGES, OR RAILWAY TRAINS, OR SIMILAR CONVEYANCES BY MEANS OF ELEC-
TRICITY," to be as follows:-
I propose to place an electrical, voltaic, or galvanic battery, electro-magnetic,
magneto-electric, induction, or frictional machine, or other apparatus for
generating an electric current in the guard's carriage or other convenient part
or portion of a railway train, which battery or other apparatus shall transmit a
current of electricity along metallic or other suitable conductors communicating
with a signal or series of signals in the engine driver's compartment, whereby
the guard may instantly communicate with him, either by causing a fire-arm to
explode, a whistle to sound, a bell to ring, by the electric light, by shock
through the driver's person, by index of a dial, reometer, or needle (telegraph,
or by such other means as may be found most convenient and readily under-
stood. I propose to do this by the simple effects of the passage of an electrical
current, either by causing ignition acting on a galvanometer, converting a piece
of soft iron into a temporary magnet or other mode of electrical action, so that

page_text: the guard or other person in one part of the train may communicate a message
for increased or diminished speed, stoppage, danger signals, or any other com-
munication that may be found necessary or desirable to establish between
them. I propose to effect the electrical connection of the railway carriages
one with another for the 'passage of the electric current by means of con-
ductors attached to each carriage, and connected with each other either under
the carriage, by the side thereof, or elsewhere as may be found most con-
venient, and so connected by means of screws, simple sockets, hook and eye, or
such other means as may be found most practical or convenient, that they may
be united or disunited at once whenever it may be necessary to attach or dis-
connect one or more carriages to or from the rest, or for this purpose I propose
either to utilize as conductors the existing connections between railway
carriages, namely, the two chains, the central screw connection, or the buffers,
or by means of wires, flexible or otherwise, chains, or other conducting media,
to enable one carriage to be readily connected with or disconnected from
another, and the electric circuit thus to be completed or interrupted at the
same time as they are attached or disconnected by means of the ordinary con-
nections at present existing between one carriage and another. I wish it to
be understood that the above means of communication may also be employed
for enabling the engine driver to communicate with the guard when found to
be necessary, a battery being placed in the engine driver's compartment of the
carriage, and signals in that of the guard.