LEVEL CROSSINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 231, 30 September 1935, Page 8

LEVEL CROSSINGS.

AUTOMATIC SAFETY DEVICE.

NEW TYPE OF WARNING SIGNAL,

An automatic safety device for level crossings lias been invented by Mr., Peter Brady, a former railway employee, 0 f Church Street, Onehunga. It consists of a system of levers, which, on the approach of a train, operate a red light which is swung to the centre of tlje crossing. A demonstration of this device was given in the presence of railway technical officials in the Returned Sol, fliers' Hall, Onehunga, on Saturdav evening. In actual practice the foremost wheel of the engine depresses a lever attached, to the rail about SOO yards from the crossing. This raises one end of a beam which traverses the crossing some 13 feet above the roadway, causing a large red lamp to travel across the overheat} beam to the centre of the road. After passing the crossing the wheel of the engine depresses another lever, which so operates the overhead beam as to extinguish the red light and restore the lamp to its normal position at one side of the crossing. The mechanism of the lamp is worked electrically, and in dig. tricts where there are 110 power lines an I accumulator battery can be used. I The railway officials who investigated the model suggested some minor improve, ments. They will submit their report

to the general manager, Mr. G. H, Mackley.