AUTOMATIC BRAKES.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2051, 20 September 1880, Page 3

AUTOMATIC BRAKES.

For some time past (says a recent Home journal) it haa been made obligatory upon railway companies to fit continuous brakes to their rolling stock used for passenger traffic, and various systems have been tried upon pneumatic vacuum, hydratic, and chain principles, one of the most simple and effectual being the Clarke and Webb chain-brake, which has been in use on the North London railway for over seven years, and for a lesser period on the London and North-Western Company’s lines. This brake is applied to every wheel of the train, and is worked by the guard or driver. During the half-year ending December, 1879, some two millions and a half stoppages were made on the North London passenger lino without a single case of failure being recorded. This is, however, an age of improvement and progress, and the insatiable Board of Trade is trying to ensure the adoption of a further safeguard in making the continuous brakes which it has brought into use automatic in their action, so as to work independently of either guard or driver in case of accident, such as the breaking away of the engine or parting of the train. Mr Webb, the engineer of the London and North-Western Bailway Company, has not been slow to adopt the automatic principle to his brake, and, in conjunction with Mr Park, of the locomotive department of the North London lino, he has contrived a very simple hut completely successful plan, which formed the subject of a series of interesting trials recently made upon the North London railway with a view of testing its efficiency. The automatic attachment consisted of a wire rope fastened to the engine and connected with the brakelever in the guards’ van at both ends of tho train. In the event of any portion of tho train breaking away, tho wire rope parts at a joint, but not without a tug of five hundredweight in force —more than sufficient to put the brako-levcrs hard over in both vans, which, by a trigger-catch, are held secure until released by tho guards.