Travelling Telephone Bureau.

Manawatu Herald, 31 May 1894, Page 3

Travelling Telephone Bureau.

— ■ ■» Experiments of very great interest ««,i Im t.,a '„ "' Ka °n recently conana value nave v.... ■ J - * r< , j ducted, under the supervision Oi im. Fulton, Engineer to the Manawatu Railway Company, as to the feasibility of intercepting t.lr t°ioph.*ne currents along the linf its o.ir .'i.'io the guard of a train may ib-j übio to establish communication with any of the stations or with the head office in case of accident or delay to the trains anywhere updn the line. The company possesses a telephone wire running beside its line along its whole length, with instruments at each station. A telephone instrument has been fitted in one of the guards' vans, and attached to it is a reel of wire, upon one end of whioh is an iron hook. Wherever the train may stop, the guard has merely to run out his reel, and throw the hook over the permanent telephone wire, and he is immediately placed in communication with the whole of the stations and the head office, the divided current being sufficiently strong to carry both ways, and the wheels of the van and rails contributing the necessary earth connection. For instance, the train can stop a mile from Wellington, and the guard there throws his hook . over the wire, where he oan be heard either in Wellington or at Longburn, and at every station between. The company also intends to duplicate its present telephone lines for its whole length. At present all the stations are on the one circuit, and a conversation between, say, Longburn and Wellington is audible at every station, and goes through every station. By an ingenious switch which is to be fitted at each station, any two stations may instantaneously switch on to the extra line, and so carry on their conversation direct without interfering with the other telephones. — Post.