IMPROVE- MENTS IN CONTINUOUS BRAKES FOR RAILWAY TRAINS, WHICH ARE ALSO APPLICABLE IN OTHER CASES WHERE BRAKES ARE USED." PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION
Year: 1880

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Alexander Cunningham Boothby, of Kirkcaldy, in the
County of Fife, North Britain, Civil Engineer, for an Invention of "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN CONTINUOUS BRAKES FOR RAILWAY TRAINS, WHICH ARE ALSO
APPLICABLE IN OTHER CASES WHERE BRAKES ARE USED."
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Alexander Cunningham
Boothby at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 24th March
1880.
ALEXANDER CUNNINGHAM BOOTHBY, of Kirkcaldy, in the County of Fife, North
Britain, Civil Engineer.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN CONTINUOUS BRAKES FOR RAILWAY
TRAINS, WHICH ARE ALSO APPLICABLE IN OTHER CASES WHERE BRAKES ARE USED."
This Invention, which relates to continuous brakes for railway trains and other
purposes, is a further development of the Invention for which Letters Patent were
granted to me, the said Alexander Cunningham Boothby, dated the 12th day of
April, A.D. 1879, and numbered 1447.
According to the present improvements in place of applying the electric current
directly to the brake blocks, as described in the Specification filed in pursuance of
my said former Letters Patent, I cause the magnets to operate mechanism for
putting on the brakes. This may be accomplished by suspending on that part of
one axle of each railway carriage, van, or other vehicle a bracket carrying bobbins,
to which bobbins the conductors from the electric generators are connected. The
brackets carrying the bobbins are of such a length that the cores of the bobbins are
situated immediately at the inner side of the tyres of the wheels, so that when the
electric current is sent through the conductors the cores are thereby converted into
maguets which follow the motion of the wheel with which they are in proximity,
and by their movement operate mechanism for applying the brakes. The magnets
may be mounted so that they may move towards and come into contact with the
wheels, or they may be incapable of such movement, they being mounted in such

page_text: close proximity to the wheels as that their magnetic influence will cause them to
be carried round with the wheels and operate the brake mechanism, as before
described.
The mechanism through which the magnets operate the brake blocks may consist
of a rod connected to a collar mounted loosely upon the axle of the wheels, which
collar is so connected with the magnets that it receives a movement in one or other
direction when the magnets follow the motion of the wheels, and causes the said
rod to operate a system of eccentrics or levers for putting on the brakes by drawing
the brake blocks against the wheels.
Or the magnets may be mounted upon a moveable rod, so connected by links
with another rigid rod that as the magnets follow the motion of the wheels in one
or other direction the said links are caused to turn upon their centres and operate
levers to put on the brakes, the said links being so weighted as to keep the said
moveable rod in proper position. when no current is passing through the magnets.
In the event of the parting of the carriages of a train taking place, which would
have (by virtue of the apparatus set forth in my former Specification) the effect of
applying the brakes throughout a train, I apply under my present improvements
a moveable stop-piece or catch, which is pulled out of its position against the levers
on the cross shafts, or against other suitable parts of the mechanism by the
occurrence of the fracture, so that if the conducting wires are broken and the
electric circuit thereby destroyed, the said levers or other suitable parts of the
mechanism instantly come in contact with the stop piece or catch and so prevent
the brakes from coming off the wheels, so that each portion of the train is
stopped.