AN IMPROVED MEANS OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE GUARD AND THE ENGINE DRIVER OF A RAILWAY TRAIN
Year: 1861

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Edward Wybard Furrell at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 29th
January 1861.
I, EDWARD WYBARD FURRELL, of Kensington, in the County of Middlesex,
Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"AN IMPROVED MEANS OF COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE GUARD AND THE ENGINE
DRIVER OF A RAILWAY TRAIN," to be as follows:-
My said Invention consists in the employment and application of an elastic
cord between the guard's van and the whistle on the engine in the manner
herein-after specified, and so as to afford the guard the means of opening the
whistle from his place in the train. I use for the cord vulcanized india-rubber
of suitable diameter. To adapt the whistle for the purpose of my Invention,
I fix on the spindle of the cock thereof a wheel of brass or iron grooved round
its circumference to receive the cord. I affix firmly between the nut on the
top of the whistle and the bell a brass or iron hook to project immediately
over the wheel; to this hook one end of the cord is to be attached by a loop,
and the cord then carried along the groove in the wheel, to which it is to be
confined, by means of a pin fixed therein, and passing through an eyelet hole
in the cord in an unstretched state at a point ninety degrees from the vertex
of the wheel. The whistle being open, the cord is thence continued along
the groove of the wheel over a pulley affixed to the side and near the top of

page_text: the chimney, and over the line of carriages to the guard's van where the other
end thereof is to be connected by a loop to a hook on a drum or roller fixed
on the roof of the break van, and by an opening therein rendered accessible
to the guard, upon which drum or roller the cord is to be wound until it has
stretched the small piece of the cord between the hook on the whistle and the
pin on the wheel, and closed the whistle, and has itself acquired a sufficient
farther tension to allow for any relaxation which might otherwise cause the
whistle to open. The drum or. roller is to be fitted with a handle and with a
simple ratchet wheel to prevent its being carried round by the elastic force of
the cord. When the guard has occasion to communicate with the engine-
driver, he releases the ratchet, and the roller flying round the cord, becomes
slack, and the elastic force of the piece of the cord between the hook on the
whistle and the pin on the wheel, will cause the whistle to open and alarm the
engine driver. The whistle will likewise be opened in the event either of an
accidental parting of the train, breaking the cord, or of its continuity being
destroyed or broken by fire or any other accident. A stop is placed on the
spindle of the whistle to prevent the wheel being drawn round beyond the
point of closing by the stretch of the main length of the cord. I fix
the whistle end of the cord by a loop to a hook, as specified, to afford the
engine driver the means, by unhooking the same, of closing the whistle, and
by using the pulley on the chimney the cord is raised above the level of the
tops of the carriages. The pulley and the wheel should be so affixed or
arranged relatively to each other as to allow the cord to work freely. My
Invention may be used with the ordinary whistle of the steam engine, adapted
as aforesaid, but I prefer an independent or additional whistle to be fixed on
some convenient part of the boiler, and I prefer it with a different tone from
that of the ordinary whistle, that the action as well as the warning of each
may be wholly distinct and separate from the other.