AUTOMATIC TRAIN STOP

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1777, 1 July 1926, Page 7

AUTOMATIC TRAIN STOP

A train came tearing along at 50 miles an hour. Ist the engineer's cab a small red light flashed, and in an instant the wheels shrieked and- the whole train came to a sudden stop, the throttle still wide open. An unseen hand had prevented an imaginary wreck'. In this successful demonstration recently on the Pere Marquette Railroad near Detroit, Mioh., electricity had. a new triumph (according 1 to the Popular Science Monthly). It was proved that it would warn of danger on the track ahead many minutes in advance, and, should the engineer be dead or disabled, bring the locomotive to a stop automatically. "Electric magnetic waves, flowing in the track rails," explained Thomas E. Clark, inventor of the radio-controlled safety devices, "are picked up by loop, collector coils under the locomotive's pilot or cowcatcher. They are transmitted to a visual signal device in the engine cab. This has three lightsred for danger, yellow for caution, and. green for clear track ahead. The red light is flashed only when there is imminent danger of collision. Should a train be occupying a block, the rest of the rail surface within the block becomes automatically demagnetised, and another train entering the block from the rear or front will receive the danger signal and an automatic application of the brakes." The incoming signals are despatched automatically by block towers along the line.