Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 217, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1915 — TESTING RAIL BONDS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TESTING RAIL BONDS

NEW INSTRUMENT THAT 18 OF SMECLAI, INTEREST. Advantages Claimed for It Over Old Appliances in Use Are Many—Accuracy Has Been Made a Special Point. The accompanying illustration shows the use of a novel rail bond tester developed at Bethlehem, Pa., which is of special interest It enables one man to compare three feet of bonded rail with three feet of unbroken rail and reads direct in equivalent length of unbroken rail. It ordinarily uses the current in the rail and accuracy is independent of amount of current, this influencing sensibility only. In places where the current In the rails is small or Intermittent, or in new construction, a special high sensibility instrument is used, the current being obtained from portable storage batteries. In order to operate this high sensibility instrument two men are required. The instrument weighs six pounds and when closed measures 5% by 7% inches. The contact bar car-

ries renewable saw blade contacts which will not fail to make good contact. The bar may be folded for easy transportation. In operation, a section of the bar is made to span the joint. The central button of the instrument is then rotated until the galvanometer needle at the top comes to 0. The rotated needle then indicates directly on the scale the length in feet of an unbroken rail having the same resistance as the bonded section.—From the Scientific American.

Testing a Railroad Bond.