TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 121 
wheels in front of the train, and is made to fit the interior surface of the passage as 
‘closely as is possible without actually touching it. The passage is exhausted by 
means of two large chambers, like gasometers, moved up and down in water by the 
action of a steam-engine. By the opening of valves in the shield, or of doors at the 
stations, the pressure may be diminished or entirely removed, and the train thus 
slackened or stopped without the necessity of stopping the engine. Each station 
being provided with a loop-line, in order that the continuity of the covered way may 
not be destroyed, the trains may be run into open sheds similar to those now in use 
for the purpose of receiving and taking out passengers. 
As the rarefaction necessary to move the train is very small, a pressure of 0°6 lb. 
per square foot on a piston of nine feet square, amounting to nearly three tons, or 
nearly four times that obtained on the Croydon railway, little importance is to be 
attached to the leakage. 
The advantages of the plan appear to be—increase of speed, safety and economy, 
absence of any resistance of the air in front of the train, and freedom from all risk of 
___ stoppage by snow-drift or frost. 
, The cost of the covered way and apparatus will not in ordinary cases exceed 
£7000 per mile, which is not more than the usual cost of locomotive engines, and of 
the extra weight of rails necessary for their support, nor than the cost of the present 
atmospheric railways. 
A working model, twenty feet in length, with a covered way of six inches square, 
was exhibited to the Section. 
ee ee ee, 
On a new mechanical arrangement for communicating Signals and Working 
Breaks on Railways. By Wn. 8S. Warn. 
Much attention has lately been paid to the contrivance of methods of communi- 
cation between the engine-drivers of railway trains and the guards in charge of the 
carriages of the train, and of affording a means of communication between the 
passengers and the guards or engine-drivers ; but no method has yet been suggested 
which has not met with objection. 
‘It appears to the author that a simple mechanical contrivance for effecting a com- 
munication between the last carriage of the train and the engine, so as to ring a bell 
or communicate with a steam-whistle, affords the best means of attracting the atten- 
tion of the driver and is the most likely to be generally useful. 
It has occurred to Mr. Ward that the most perfect method of making communi- 
_ cations on railway-trains is by the circular motion of rods extending under the car- 
_ riages, so as to form a system of shafting which he calls torsion-rods. This he 
_ proposes to effect by means of rods moving in slides, and having springs attached, so 
as to extend the rods in like manner as the buffers of the carriages, each system of 
rods having a portion in the centre capable of revolving on bearings attached to the 
_ framework of the carriage or carriage-wheels, and connected by universal joints with 
_ the sliding portion of the rods, which revolves in and is supported by ‘bushes’ placed 
_0n springs, so as to give a little play both laterally and vertically. At each end of 
_ such system of rods is placed either a universal joint, capable of being attached to a 
_ similar joint, or a portion of a hollow cone, with a spike in the centre and teeth or 
claws on its outer edge, so that two carriages on which the rods are applied being 
_ coupled together, the cones on the adjacent system of rods are pushed together, and 
_ will be held in contact by the springs, and form a coupling-joint capable of commu- 
- nicating circular motion from one system of rods to another, so that such systems of 
rods will, when the carriages to which they are attached are coupled, form a con- 
tinuous line of shafting. The torsion-rods will be extensible or compressible in 
length, and also yield laterally, according to the motion of the carriages, but will, 
when turned on their axes, communicate circular motion. 
It is proposed to apply torsion-rods for communicating signals between guards 
_ and engine-drivers of railway-trains, affixing the rods under the carriages, so that 
_ systems of such rods forming a continuous shafting may give simultaneous motion 
to discs of wheels placed in the carriages, occupied by railway guards, and also to 
_ Similar wheels placed upon the tender under the inspection of the driver; pulleys 
