Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1914 — INVENTORS. GET BUSY [ARTICLE]

INVENTORS. GET BUSY

BAFETY SUGGESTIONS THAT FOL LOW RAILROAD ACCIDENTS.

Seemingly Every Form of Crank Comes Forward With Ideas, Most of Them Laughable and All * Absolutely Impractical.

No sooner do we have a deplorable catastrophe on the line than scordi of Inventors —from all parts of the world —think out all kinds of schemes to prevent railroad accidents, said an English patent agent in the course of a recent conversation. One man came to me with a smiling face and stated that he had hit upon a scheme whereby railway collislfipSj.. the penalty we have to pay for the benefits of Steam locomotion and fast travel, would become a thing of the past. He suggested that huge magnets of immense power should be attached to the fronts of all locomtives. He was confident that the polarizing aetion of the magnets of two trains, dashing together?, would repel each other and prevent actual contact of the engines. )*'-'■ Another gentleman of an inventive turn of mind wanted to have all locomotives fitted with several immense clutching devices, built on the lines of the ice-clutch. These were to be worked by a lever in the cab of the engine. All the driver had to do when his locomotive became unmanageable and was careering up the line at break-neck speed was to pull down the lever. This would put the clutches into action. They would hold firm, and eventually bring the heavy mass of Iron and steel to a standstill. It never seemed to occur to him that the clutches would probably tear up the ties and the rails as well, and he had given no thought of the probable fate of the carriage behind the en-:-glne- - :

One member of the female persuasion thought it a happy inspiration to suspend large indiarubber air-cham-bers between the carriages to deaden the concussion; while a young girl who had been in a railway accident thought it would be a splendid idea if carriages, instead of being made of metal and wood, were constructed of hardened rubber or leather, but sufficiently pliable to “give” at a shock. At a railway company’s meeting some time ago a gentleman thought it would be a good thing If every locomotive carried an outlook man. This servant, he said, should be supplied with a pair of powerful binoculars, by means of which he could detect at a considerable distance any obstruction or defect on the Iron road, and, by signaling to the driver to shut off steam and apply the brikes, thus avoid an accident or a collision. But railroads do not always run in a straight line, and what would be the use of an outlook man and his glasses during the night or a day of dense fog?