Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 229, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1914 — FLAGMAN ALWAYS ON DUTY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FLAGMAN ALWAYS ON DUTY

Automatic Device Warranted to Be Constantly on the Alert and In Order. The accompanying Illustration shows an automatic railroad flagman which is being used quite extensively by many of the electric and steam railroads on the Pacific coast and in the Southwest, as well as in a few places

in the East. This device has been recommended by the American safety congress. It is the invention of a Los Angeles trainman. The device, commonly called the “wig-wag -signal,” consists of a 26-inch red disk, swung, pendulum-fashion, at right angles to the crossing highway. It is operated automatically by electricity, through an arc of three feet, at the speed of from twenty to fifty oscillations per minute. In the center of the disk on both sides is a ruby lens five inches in diameter, while Just below the .lens is the word “stop” outlined with white glass Jewels. Two incandescent lamps fixed within the disk are lighted on the approach of a train and thus illuminate the ruby lens and the word “stop.” A bell also rings. Each function of the mechanical flagman operates independently of the others, so that, in case one part becomes temporarily disabled, it does not affect the working of the rest— Popular Electricity.