Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1915 — LATEST SAFETY DEVICE [ARTICLE]

LATEST SAFETY DEVICE

FOR THE PROTECTION OF ENGINEER AND FIREMAN. I Automatic Mechanism Is the Result of Careful Study—Makes Greater Possibility of Escape in Case of Train Wreck.

“The engineman and fireman stuck to their posts,” or “the engineman and fireman Jumped.” The account of virtually every railroad wreck contains either one or the other of these statements. The mental struggles, all the more acute for their brevity, which lie behind those statements are overshadowed by the magnitude of what follows. Yet to the engineman and fireman they often are the beginning or the end of all things. What man dare say that when confronted with the necessity of making a decision of life and death upon a second’s noticq he will face death for his responsibilities or that he will throw duty to the winds and think only of saving himself? The chances are that training and instinct, as well as sense of duty will keep the engine crew at its post, yet many a driver of the “iron horse” has gone to his death by following his instinct, when conditions were such that sticking to his post could not have prevented the accident and when he had a chance to Jump and save his life. > Comparatively few engineers ever are called upon to make such snap decisions, but as sure as the sun rises and sets a certain number of them are forced to every year, and no man can say that he will not be next when he takes his engine from the roundhouse. It is a useless sacrifice of two additional lives for the crew to stick to the cab when the accident cannot be avoided. It is likewise a dereliction of duty for the two men to Jump when, by sticking to their posts they may avoid, or lessen, the seriousness of the accident. The problem is worth solving. And it has been solved by William A. Uttz, a Ft. Worth* inventor. The principle involved is that of an automatic bit of mechanism which relieves the engineman and fireman of the responsibility of making the decision. In the event of impending disaster the Bimple pulling of a lever does everything that the men could do by sticking to their posts, and at the same time automatically and instantaneously without necessitating any further action, even the moving of a muscle, on their part, provides them with a better and safer method of escape than that of Jumping. Danger appears ahead. Each or either man, pulls his lever, and the mechanism closes the throttle, applies the brakes and sand, extinguishes the fire, then reverses the engine. Simultaneously the engineman’s and fireman’s seats drop below the level of the cab floor, into heavy steel cylinders, heavy lids drop oVer them and lock, the two men. neatly “canned” in padded receptacles, are thrown wide of the tracks to either side of the speeding engine. It makes no difference whether the drums in which the men are tightly inclosed fall into the water, or whether an engine or a car falls on top of them. In the first case the drums float. In the second they withstand the weight or are pushed aside. The airbrake drum on a locomotive; experience has shown, is never crushed in a wreck, and the “man drums” are seven times stronger than the air tanks. Mr. Uttz is a practical railroad man, and the value of his invention is apparent when it is .known that it is not a mere theory, an invention on paper but that it has been tried out repeatedly with human occupants under as severe conditions as could be arranged, sad each time with perfect success.