IMPROVEMENTS IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE PERMANENT WAY OF RAILWAYS
Year: 1855

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PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Joseph Armstrong and John
Livingston at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with their
Petition, on the 14th April 1855.
We, JOSEPH ARMSTRONG, of the Normanton Station, Wakefield, and JOHN
LIVINGSTON, of Leeds, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE PERMANENT WAY OF RAILWAYS" to be
as follows:-
These improvements are designed for the purpose of dispensing with the
use of "switches" or "points" as heretofore constructed and employed on
railways for passing a train of carriages from one line of rails to another.
The mode heretofore commonly practised of constructing such parts has been
to plane them to a taper point, and the object of these improvements is to
obviate the necessity for pointing such parts by substituting in lieu thereof the
following arrangement, that is to say :-
At those parts of a line of railway where a crossing occurs,, we place a pair
of sliding rails, formed either single or double headed, and we connect each
such pair of rails securely together in any convenient manner at such distances
asunder that the flanges of the wheels of the carriages may pass clear between
them; and that one end of such sliding rails corresponds with the butt ends of
the crossing and main rails of the permanent way, and the other end of the
butt ends of one of the rails of each such pair corresponds with the butt
ends of the rails of the main line only; and it is at this particular juncture

page_text: that the action of the sliding rails takes place, so as to present one or other
of the ends thereof opposite to those of the main rails, whilst the opposite
ends of the sliding rails are securely connected by "fishing" or otherwise to
the fixed rails which form the crossing and the main line. An important
feature in these improvements consists in rendering the aforesaid sliding rails
self-acting, which I effect by the use and employment of two check rails or
bars securely fixed to the sleepers of the permanent way between the inner
pair of the aforesaid sliding rails. The ends of these check rails or bars are
curved inwards, and are so fixed with respect to the main rails as that the
straight part of such check rails allow the flanges of the wheels of the car-
riages to pass between them and the side of one or other of the sliding rails,
according to the position such said rails occupy with respect to the fixed rails.
The effect of thus arranging and combining the before-mentioned sliding
rails and fixed check rails with the ordinary crossing rails and those of the
main line will be better understood by the following example of the mode of
operating therewith; that is to say; supposing the aforesaid sliding rails to be
pulled or pushed by means of a handle so as to connect the crossing rails with
the rails of the main line, a portion of one of the inner rails of one pair of
sliding rails will be pulled under that particular fixed check rail which is
nearest thereto; and in like manner and simultaneously with such movement
the inner rail of the other pair of sliding rails will be pulled from under the
other fixed check rail, and in this manner and by these means railway carriages
may be passed, or their course diverted from one line of rails to another; the
curved ends of the aforesaid fixed check rails serve to ensure such diversion
from the main line by the flanges of the wheels coming into contact with
curved ends of the aforesaid check rails, thereby forcing and retaining the
wheels of the carriages in their proper course. But supposing the carriages
to be passing from a crossing or siding to the main line in an opposite direction
to that above mentioned, the flanges of the wheels coming into contact with
that portion of the sliding rail which is under one or other of the fixed check
rails will force said sliding rail outwards, and thus bring the ends of the
crossing rails opposite to those of the main line. A weight attached to the
handle which actuates the sliding rails throws the crossing rails out of a line
with those of the main line after the flanges of the wheels have passed the
check rails, & thus renders the aforesaid sliding rails self-acting.