IMPROVEMENTS IN SIGNAL AND INDICATING APPARATUS FOR RAILWAYS
Year: 1858

page_text: application for Letters Patent was not given within the time prescribed
by the Act.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Henry Johnson at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 5th May
1858. A communication from Henry Maule, of Philadelphia, in the
United States of America.
I, JOHN HENRY JOHNSON, of 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the County of
Middlesex, and of 166, Buchanan Street, in the City of Glasgow, North
Britain, Gentleman, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN SIGNAL AND INDICATING APPARATUS FOR RAILWAYS," a com-
munication from Henry Maule, of Philadelphia, in the United States of
America, to be as follows:-
This Invention relates,-
First, to an improved system or mode of notifying to the engineer or driver
the approach of the train to various stations, crossings, switches, drawbridges,
or other points on the railroad, and also of warning the attendants stationed
at such points that the train is at hand.
Secondly, to a system or mode of notifying to the passengers of a train the
name of the different stations and other localities on the road to which the
said train may be approaching.
The first part of this Invention consists in opening and closing the whistles
of locomotives by the use of a double inclined plane or series of double
inclined planes or other suitable projections placed either between or outside
the rails, and acting upon a pulley carried by the engine, and attached to

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a lever arm or its equivalent, which arm transmits the necessary motion for
sounding the whistle by levers and rods connected therewith and with the
whistle itself, which whistle is also under the control of the driver.
segmental guide bar is employed for keeping the pulley arm in its proper
position, and a counterweight is used to partially balance the weight of the
pulley and arm.
According to the second part of this Invention a similar arrangement of
double inclined planes is used for actuating a pulley and lever arm carried by
each carriage for the purpose of putting in motion when requisite an endless
band or chain of plates having the names of the several stations on the road
marked thereon, such band or chain being situated within a case inside the
carriage, and having an opening in front through which each of the names of
the stations in succession may be visible to the passengers. This band or
chain is carried by a pair of rollers, on the axis of one of which are fitted two
ratchet wheels with their teeth in opposite directions. These wheels are each
worked in opposite directions by palls of their own, so as to reverse the motion
of the band or chain when requisite. The palls are carried by a lever arm,
which is fixed to the shaft or axis of the forked arm carrying the pulley above
referred to, and acted upon by the inclines. This latter arm is in this case,
however, slotted at the forked end where the axis of the pulley passes through
it, and to the axis of the pulley is connected a rod, which is attached to a
short lever on a second shaft or axis carrying a second short lever, which
is connected to a sliding plate serving to bring the proper pall into gear
according to the direction in which the train may be moving.