AUTOMATIC BRAKES.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3671, 30 September 1880, Page 2

AUTOMATIC BRAKES.

For-some time past (says a reoent Home journal) it has been made obligatory upon railway companies to fit eon. tinuous brakes to their rolling-stook nsed for passenger traffic, and various systems hare been tried upon pneumatic, vacuum, hydratic, and chain principles, one of the most simple and effectual being tho Clarke and Webb chain brake, which has bpen in use on the North London railway for over seven years, and for a lesser period on the London and NorthWestern Company's lines. This brake is applied to e?ery wheel of the train, and is worked by the guard or driver. During the half-year ending December 1879, some two million and a half stoppages were made on the North London passenger line 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 NorthWestern Bailway Company, has not been slow to adopt the automatic principle in his brake, and in conjunction with Mr Park, of the locomotive department of the North London line,, he. has contrived a . very simple but completely successful plan, which formed the subject of a series of interesting trials recently made upon the North London railway with a new s 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 the train. In the event of ' any portion of the train breaking away, the wire rope'parts at a joint, but not without a tug of five hundred, weight in force—more than sufficient to put the. -,-■ brake-levers bard over in both vans, which, by a trigger-oatch, are held secure until released by the guards.