IMPROVEMENTS IN RAILWAY ENGINES AND CARRIAGES, AND IN RAILWAYS APPLICABLE FOR THE PURPOSE OF LOCOMOTION ON INCLINES, AND ALSO POR RETARDING AND STOPPING SUCH ENGINES AND CARRIAGES
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Michael Henry at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 22nd February
1867. A communication from abroad by Pierre Ambjorn Comte de
Sparre, of 88, Rue Lafayette, Paris, in the French Empire.
I, MICHAEL HENRY, of 68, Fleet Street, in the City of London, Patent
Agent, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS
IN RAILWAY ENGINES AND CARRIAGES, AND IN RAILWAYS APPLICABLE FOR THE
PURPOSE OF LOCOMOTION ON INCLINES, AND ALSO POR RETARDING AND STOPPING SUCH
ENGINES AND CARRIAGES," communicated to me from abroad by Pierre Ambjorn
Comte de Sparre, of 88, Rue Lafayette, Paris, in the French Empire, to be
as follows:-
The object of this Invention is principally to enable railway engines,
carriages, and trains to travel on inclines. For this purpose rollers, or wheels,
or blocks are fitted to a locomotive waggon or carriage and caused to act on
and bear against the under surface of rails on which the locomotive waggon
or carriage is travelling, thereby exerting a counter pressure compensating
for the reduction of pressure, bite, or binding of the ordinary wheels on the
rails when descending or ascending inclines. The said supplementary rollers
or wheels or blocks are fitted so that they can be raised and depressed, so that
when depressed they act under the rail as aforesaid, and when raised as, for
example, on levels, crossings, or wherever desirable, they can be lifted clear
of the line. At the required parts of the line the rails are fixed to chairs or

page_text: supports in such manner as to be raised above the ground and allow the
rollers or wheels to act under them. In one form the top of the rail may
have on one side a rectangular edge fitting in a corresponding mortice in the
chair.
Various arrangements may be adopted to raise and lower the rollers and
cause them to press against the rails. I will describe an arrangement by way
of example. Here the rollers are on the ends of arms centred in a plate
supported by rods and connected with jointed links suspended by a chain or
cord, whereby they are actuated, and thereby raised and lowered; or, in
another arrangement the arms are worked by a shaft which is turned in the
required direction so as to draw them up or down, and thereby raise or depress
the rollers. The shaft may be worked by worm and toothed segments or by
other ordinary means, and a toothed wheel worked by a treadle acts on a bar
connected by crank arms with cams or exentrics which it thus actuates and
which work against a sliding plate; through this plate, which bears by means
of springs regulated by screws against another plate, pass the rods which
support the first above-named plate, thereby forcing the rollers more or less
firmly against the rails, the degree of pressure being regulated by the nuts or
screws.
The apparatus will work as a break by fitting break blocks or friction pieces
in such position as to act upon the top of the ordinary wheel instead of in front
or behind it.