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IX.-Account of E^rperimmts made on a New Friction Sledge for stopping 

 Radway Trams. By the Rev. Samuel Haughton, Fellow of Trinity College 

 Dublin. ■' ^ ' 



Eead June 4, 1850. 



The instrument which is here described, and with which the following ex- 

 periments were made, is the invention of Mr. S. Wilfred Haughton, Engineer 

 and Superintendent of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway Engine Factory a; 

 Ringsend Docks^ It is intended to be used at the termini of railways, instead 

 of the spring buffer usually employed to stop the train, in case it should happen 

 through the carelessness of the engine-driver or guards, to enter the terminus 

 with too great speed. The objection to the use of the spring-buffer is two- 

 lold: the space through which the recoil can take place is too short, and the 

 second recoil of the spring produces effects which are only less dangerous than 

 hose of the first shock; this latter inconvenience is sometimes remedied by 

 the use of ratchets, which prevent the recoU of the spring after it has been 

 compressed by the shock. But the fii-st objection is founded on the use of the 

 spring Itself, and cannot be removed. A careful consideration of these ob- 

 jections led Mr. S. W. Haughton to the invention of his Friction Sledge, as a 

 substitute for the spring buffer. 



The Friction Sledge consists of two strong wooden frames, shod with iron 

 and shaped as m the annexed diagram, which represents a side view of the 

 sledge m action ; these two frames are provided with iron flanges on the 

 inside (so as to prevent them from slipping off the rails), and being placed pa- 

 rallel to each other at a distance equal to the interval between the rails are 

 strongly tied together by uon braces. The sledge, being placed upon the rails 

 VOL. XXU. 2 G ' 



