Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 227, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1913 — SETS BRAKES ON TRAIN [ARTICLE]

SETS BRAKES ON TRAIN

PERFECTION 'IS CLAIMED FOR NEW SAFETY DEVICE. i If Signal Is Disregarded the Throttle Is Automatically Disconnected From the Steam Valve and Stop Is Made Certain. L. W. Horne, who is a testing engineer for the Brooklyn Interborough lines, has invented an automatic train-stopping device which he will enter In the competition f,or the |IO,OOO prize offered by a New England line. This competition requires that: Every essential part of the stopping and controlling mechanism must be so constructed that its removal or fail ure will cause an application of the train brakes. The apparatus applied must not con-_ stitute a source of passengers or employes. The apparatus applied must withstand snow, ice, sleet and temperatures below freezing. The device must operate only in the normal direction of traffic; a train backing up or running in the reverse direction must not be interfered with by track devices which would cause an application of the train brakes were the train running in the normal direction of traffic. A speed control device must be so designed that a train may pass a distance signal (by which is meant a caution signal which indicates to the engineer that the section still preceding the one he is about to enter is occupied by a train) or a signal which indicates that a train is to cross another track, without causing the air-brakes to be applied, providing its speed is less than a predetermined limit.' But should the speed of the train exceed the limit when approaching a cautionary point, the air-brakes must be automatically applied; and then, after the train speed has been sufficiently reduced, the brakes are to be automatically released, permitting the engineer to proceed. Mr. Horne says his device is very simple to construct and when applied to a locomotive can hardly be observed? j “Consider yourself riding in a luxurious parlor car, the landscape rushing by at 70 miles an hour, perhaps faster; an experienced engineer is at the throttle and he has never been guilty of carelessness. Engineers rarely are dangerously careless more than once. The train approaches a section where a detour to another track is to be made to avoid a stalled freight or a road repair gang, and the block signals Indicate the course the engineer is to take. If he reduces his train to a safe rate as he approaches the little trip finger that guards the crossover sticking up from the roadbed, the depending actuating handle of our device on the locomotive simply clicks against the trip finger and nothing happens. However, should the engineer absentmindedly disregard the caution indication of the semaphore and fail to reduce the great speed with which his heavy train is bearing down on the little guardant trip finger, the depending handle of our device, bangs against the trip finger, the Impact transmitting a high kinetic energy to the air-valve mechanism, and by the hiss of compressed air and the failing of his pressure gauge, the engineer realizes what has happened. Simultaneously with the exhaust of the brake pipe pressure, the device has automatically disconnected his throttle lever from the steam valve. He can only release his train brakes after the speed of the train has been sufficiently reduced. “Had the engineer been asleep or dead and, therefore, no hand at the brake valve to release the brakes, the train would have gradually come to a stop and the train crew would investigate.”