IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR EFFECTING COMMUNICATION BETWEEN RAILWAY PASSENGERS, GUARDS, AND ENGINE DRIVERS
Year: 1869

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Bathgate at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on
15th June 1869.
the
I, HENRY BATHGATE, of Salford, in the County of Lancaster, do
hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS
FOR EFFECTING COMMUNICATION BETWEEN RAILWAY PASSENGERS, GUARDS, AND
ENGINE DRIVERS," to be as follows:-
This Invention consists in the application to each carriage of a self-
contained and independent apparatus by which signals can be given to
the guard and engine driver without requiring a continuous line or cord
from one end of the train to the other, or inconvenient couplings or
connections.
Along the top of each compartment of the carriage there is a pull
chain or cord or rod connected to a ratchet lever in connection with a
catch and spring, and the tops of the levers of the several compart-
ments are connected to one arm of an L lever by a chain or wire
connected to one or more springs, and also to other chains or wires

page_text: attached to semaphores, which when required act as signals outside one.
end of the carriage, or by percussion light signal lamps. The other arm of
the L lever is connected by a chain or wire to a compound lever, having
one arm jointed to a bolt and another arm connected to, a rod with a
flat head outside the carriage, which rod and head I call a piston. To
the piston arm is connected a chain or wire extending the entire length.
of the carriage, and connected to a similar compound lever having a
bolt and piston, and the piston arm at that end is also connected by a
chain or wire to a third arm of the first-mentioned compound lever, so
that both levers move simultaneously. In guides at each end of the
carriage I place a spring rod having a projecting nib, and at one end a
plate or head outside the end of the carriage, and both rods are con-
nected to springs. The spring rods. are held back by the bolts, before
mentioned, and the plates project only a short distance from the ends of
the carriage; but when the bolts are pulled from the nibs the springs
cause the rods and plates to project further outwards. All the carriages.
are provided with similar apparatus, and the guard's van and engine
tender with signal bells, whistles, or any ordinary alarums or signals, it
being understood that the spring rods. and pistons are in similar posi-.
tions at both ends of the carriages, the spring rod at one end of one
carriage being opposite to the piston at one end of another carriage, and
so on throughout the entire train.
When no signal is required the spring rods are in their backward
positions held by the bolts, and when a signal has to be given to the
guard and engine driver a passenger pulls the pull chain, cord, or rod
and acts on the ratchet lever, bringing down the lower part so as to
make it visible, and at the same time bringing out the semaphores. and
working the L lever, which by its connecting chain works the compound
levers and shifts the bolts from the projecting nibs so that the spring
rods shall move out and act on the pistons of the next carriages, and
as when the pistons are pressed they work the compound levers and bolts
connected to them, the spring rods of the carriages at each end are
propelled outwards and act on the pistons of the next carriages, and so
on through the entire train until pistons or levers connected with the
guard's van and engine tender are acted upon, and signals given at the
same time to both the guard and engine driver. The guard ascertains
the carriage in which the chain was pulled by means of the semaphores,
and finds the compartment by noticing the projecting end of the ratchet

page_text: lever, that being the only one acted upon by the pull chain, and kept in
its downward position by its catch and spring. When all is right the
guard goes to one end of the carriage and by means of a chain or wire.
pulls back the catch of the ratchet lever for enabling the lever to be
placed in its original position by the spring on the chain connected to it,.
and then by means of chains connected to a two-armed lever, or passing
over guide pulleys he pulls back the spring rods so that they are held
by the bolts.