Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1917 — CAN’T RUN PAST SEMAPHORE [ARTICLE]

CAN’T RUN PAST SEMAPHORE

If Engineer Fails or Is Unable to Notice Danger Signal Train Is Stopped Automatically. Experiments are being conducted by one of the Eastern railroads with a safety device which a Rochester Inventor has evolved for the purpose of eliminating accidents caused by the occasional failure of locomotive engineers to observe danger signals. Particularly during heavy storms and dense fogs, it is. extremely difficult for a jjllot to see a semaphore. The safety appliance is intended to control the speed of the train mechanically, so that it cannot run into an open switch or collide with another one if the signals ure properly set. The appliance is installed in a locomotive and consists of an arrangement which permits the steam to be cut off and the brakes applied, when a lever arm, extended adjacent to one of the rails, strikes a trip fixed on the track and regulated either mechanically or electrieally by connection with a tegular signal system. Thus, when a towerinan sets q semaphore to stop an approaching train, and the engineer of the latter fails to see it, the lever arm of the controlling device hits the trip, and the train Is brought to a stop.—Popular Mechanics Magazine.