Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1890 — Device for Preventing Collisions. [ARTICLE]

Device for Preventing Collisions.

Washington Special. Some time ago mention was made in these dispatches of the exhibition of a device for preventing collisions of railroad trains. Recently the device was tested practically on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, with flattering results. The Universal Electric Railway Signal Company, of Richmond, Va., prepared about three miles of track on the road mentioned, by placing a thick wire on an insulated wooden projection about three inches above the track. This wire was an Ordinary iron telegraph wire, somewhat thicker than those used. Two switch engines wero supplied with metallic brushes, which were fixed to brush along this wire in the rear of the fire-boxes. They were connected with telephones in the cars in the rear of the engines. The engines were started out along the track, and as soon as they had approached within about a mile of each other the fact of their proximity was made manifest in each of the cars by the ringing of the telephone bells. It is designed to place these telephones in the engines of regular trains and as soon as the bells ring the engineers can take up the telephones and converge with each other. The system worked to perfection, and demonstrated that accidents by collisions, washouts and such causes can be absolutely avoided by the use of this device. About fifty newspaper correspondents witnessed the experiment.

' The eighth woman to bo admitted to the bar of tjie United States Supreme Court is Kate Kane, of Chioago. '