IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING SIGNALS IN RAILWAY TRAINS
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Cocker and Frederick
Stivens Cocker at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 27th September 1867.
We, JAMES COCKER and FREDERICK STIVENS COCKER, both of Milner
Square, Islington, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, do hereby declare
the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVED APPARATUS FOR TRANSMITTING
SIGNALS IN RAILWAY TRAINS," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to enable signals to be communicated
to the guard or to the engine driver, or simultaneously to both guard
and engine driver of a train in motion, from a passenger in any compart-
ment of the train, and also from the guard to the engine driver, and vice
versá. This we effect by fitting to the roof of each carriage an apparatus
which will transmit an endway motion imparted thereto by the pulling of a
pendent cord throughout the length of the train, which motion may be made
to sound an alarum, throw up a visible sigual, or set the whistle of the engine
in action. The apparatus admits of modification in so far that a thrust or a
pulling action may be used to transmit the endway motion through the train.
Mounted on the roof of each carriage are two sliding bars which meet at the
middle of the carriage and extend from end to end thereof. These bars
carry at their outer extremities (which project beyond the ends of the
carriage) buffer heads, which are intended to strike against or be struck by
similar buffer heads carried by sliding rods on the adjoining carriages, and
thus transmit to the opposite ends of the train a movement that may be
applied to work any approved kind of-signal. These bars slide in fixed

page_text: guides, and they are notched on the under sides to allow spring catches to
engage with them and retain them in a backward position. Coupled with
each sliding bar is a sliding block which is capable of receiving a limited
independent motion, but which when this motion is exceeded draws back its
sliding bar to what may be termed the "set position." This block is also
notched on its under side and in a reverse direction to the bar, and a reversed
tooth of the same spring catch which holds the bar in the set position enters
the notch in the sliding block and holds it fast. Attached to one end of this
block is a pendent weight, or it may be a coiled spring, for putting the appa-
ratus in action, and to the other end is attached a draw cord (passed over
guide pullies to the end of the carriage) for setting the apparatus. The
inner ends of the sliding rods are fitted with stop pieces, between which lies a
rock lever connected by means of cords or chains to the several compartiments
of the carriage. When a cord attached to this lever is pulled the lever will
be forced against the sliding bar stops with sufficient power to cause the
spring catch to release its hold, and the weights or springs attached to the
sliding blocks will suddenly come into action and cause the buffer heads to
move outwards and reach those of the adjoining carriages and strike them a
smart blow sufficient to disengage in like manner the spring catches which
retain the sliding bars and blocks of those carriages and leave them free to be
acted upon in turn by their pendent weights or springs. In like manner the
apparatus of each carriage in the train will be set in action, the endway
motion proceeding to the front and rear of the train from the carriage
whence the first impulse was derived.
To prevent the apparatus being set' in action unnecessarily or to detect the
perpetrator of a needless alarm the pendent cords in the several carriage com-
partments may each be rolled up on a handle and the whole enclosed in a
box or cup fitted in the carriage roof, access to which may be gained by
bursting open a paper bottom or cover, on which may be printed the directions
for working the apparatus.
t
Instead of using buffer heads for transmitting the endway motion by a
blow through the train, the sliding bars or rods may be fitted with a rocking
finger so contrived as to engage with a pin or catch carried by the bar or rod
of the adjoining carriage, when the sliding bar is released and a drag is put
by a spring or weighted cord upon it.
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