Improvements in Safety Attachments for Car-trucks.
Year: 1893

page_text: Date of Application, 13th Jan., 1893-Accepted, 18th Feb., 1893
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in Safety Attachments for Car-trucks.
We, LOUIS FRANK FISHER, and JAMES ALEXANDER FERGUSON, of Willow
Springs, in the County of Howell, and State of Missouri, United States of America,
Gentlemen, 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 :-
The invention relates to improvements in safety attachments for railway-coach
and engine trucks, and the objects in view are to provide such a device as
will be of cheap and simple construction, readily applied, and which will serve,
should the wheels leave the rails, to support the coach or engine upon the rails,
thus avoiding the contact of the wheels with the ties, maintaining the coach or
engine in a vertical position, so that it may be controlled by the engineer who will
not be thrown from his post, which will act as a brake to retard and overcome the
momentum of the coach or engine, and which will prevent such lateral movement or
tendency as would cause the coach or engine to leave the track.
With these and other detailed objects in view the invention consists in certain
features of construction hereinafter specified, and particularly pointed out in the
claim.
Referring to the drawings,
Figure 1 is a perspective view of the front end of an engine-truck with the
invention applied.
Fig. 2 is a longitudinal section through one of the side sills of said truck.
Fig. 3 is a bottom plan view of the invention.
Like numerals of reference indicate like parts in all the figures of the
drawings.
1 designates the opposite side sills of, for instance, a front truck of an engine, and
the same has its lower corners at its front ends bevelled or cut away at an angle as
shown. These sills at their ends are recessed, and in rear of the recesses axles 3 provided
with ground-wheels 4 are journaled in the sills. The safety attachment, which we
will now proceed to describe, it will be understood, is preferably located at the outer
ends of the two trucks of a coach or engine; but in this instance we have merely
shown a portion of one truck, (the front), and hence but one attachment appears.
In the recessed ends at the front of the sills are inserted the horizontal shanks 6
of a pair of inverted-L-shaped hangers 7, the lower ends of which are bifurcated
to form diverging branches 8. Bolts 9 are passed through the horizontal shanks of
the hangers and through the sills. These bolts 9 at their lower ends project through
the rear ends of a pair of inclined brackets 11, which extend forward beyond the
ends of the sills, and upon their upper faces are reduced to form central trans-
verse shoulders, which embrace and abut against the rear edges of a pair of metal
plates 12, through which said bolts 9 also pass and which are applied to the
under sides of the aforesaid sills. Interposed between the lower spread or
diverging bifurcated ends of the hangers and the upper sides of the forwardly-
disposed brackets is a transverse bar 15, considerably wider than the track
upon which the truck is to run. Bolts 16 pass through the bifurcations of the
brackets and through the transverse bar at points coinciding with their locations.
Inclined braces 17 are bolted at 18 to the upper sides of the sills, decline
therefrom, extend forward, and by the same bolts as secure the inner bifur-
cations of the hangers and the transverse bars together are secured at their
lower ends to said inner bifurcations. Applied to the under side of the transverse
bar is a pair of metal plates 19, said plates being located at and extending
beyond the ends of the bar. The plates are provided at proper intervals
with bolt-holes, two holes of each plate being for the purpose of receiving the

page_text: two bolts 9' of the hangers, while the central holes of said plates have passed
therethrough and the transverse bar bolts 21. These plates at their front edges
project beyond the corresponding edge of the transverse bar and are slightly
upturned or curvel to form a flange 22. Upon their under sides and at points
between the wheels and adjacent thereto the plates are provided with pendent
guard-flanges 23.
It will be seen that the attachment described is most securely mounted in position
and well able to withstand the severe strain to which it will be subjected in case
the truck should leave the track. In case of such accident or event it will be
observed that as the wheels leave the rails the transverse plates and bar will
rest upon the rails across the same. The upturned flanges of the plates will
prevent injury to the rails or engaging with joints, frogs, etc., and to the contrary
will slide or ride over the same, while the pendent guard-flanges, taking between
the rails, will obviously prevent the truck from having such a lateral movement as
would permit it to leave the track. The consequence is that the engine, though
not running upon its wheels, which are held out of contact with the ties, simply
glides or rides over the rails, the contact of the plates with the rails serving to create
sufficient friction to overcome within a reasonable distance from the point the truck
left the rails the momentum of the same.
The coach or engine is maintained vertical or in its normal position, and thus
a wreck is avoided and the engineer may reverse his engine and terrible accidents
he avoided.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of the said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what we
claim is :-
The combination, with the opposite sills recessed at their front ends, the
inverted L-shaped hangers having their upper horizontal portions inserted into
the recesses and bolted to the sills, said hangers having their lower ends
provided with diverging bifurcations terminating in perforated ends, of the
transverse bar upon the under sides of the bifurcations, the metal plates upturned
at their front edges provided with depending flanges and applied to the under
side of the transverse bar, the diagonal braces bolted to the sills and having
their front ends terminating over the inner bifurcations of the hangers, and the
series of bolts passed through the lower ends of the braces, the inner bifurcations,
the transverse bar and plates, and bolts passed through the outer bifurcations,
bar, and plates, and through bar and plates between the bifurcations, substantially
as specified.
Dated this 13th day of January 1893.
W. P. THOMPSON & BOULT,
Agents for the Applicants.