Lest the jj Engineer Forget 



The engineer misunder- 

 stood or forgot the sig- 

 nal. This was the result 



DID you ever ride in a locomotive cab, 

 faithfully eyeing each signal as it flies 

 past, figuring on how the next signal 

 is likely to be, watching the gages on the 

 locomotive, and looking after all the other 

 contrivances? Did you ever walk along a 

 picket fence, trying to count the separate 

 staves as they went by? In spite of your 

 best efforts at concentrating, didn't your 

 mind presently wander? Didn't the whole 

 thing finally become a big muddle? Do 

 you wonder, then, that the engineer, work- 

 ing under the strain that he works under, 

 sometimes misses his count of the signals as 

 they go by, forgetting whether the last one 

 read "Danger" or not? 



How to eliminate the human element in 

 train operation is one of the really big 

 propositions before the railroads today. 



Some years ago the New York, New 

 Haven and Hartford Railway offered a 

 prize of $10,000 for an automatic stop which 

 wjuld meet all the rigorous conditions 

 imposed — something which would not be 

 affected by sleet, snow and cold, which 

 would not require expensive changes in 

 standard equipment, and which 

 would not fail oftener than once in 

 a million times, which is about the 

 record made by the electro- 

 pneumatic signals in the New 

 York subway. It was also pointed 

 out that special regard should be 

 paid to traffic conditions on steam 

 railways and to the fact that any 

 automatic control system must be 

 capable of application to high and 

 low speed passenger trains as well 

 as to freight trains. The general design 



A host of inventors have applied of block signals 



A new automatic train stop which 

 promises to prevent disaster 

 should signals be disregarded 



themselves to the problem. No less 

 than fifteen hundred and seventy- 

 four plans for automatic train stops 

 were offered to the railway company 

 as the result of this prize offer. The 

 inventors all aim to establish an 

 arrangement such that if the engi- 

 neer does forget or overlook a signal, 

 his train will be brought to a stop 

 automatically. 



The trouble occurs when an engi- 

 neer runs by a home signal and 

 into the next block in which a train may 

 already be standing, or a bridge washed 

 out, or other trouble manifesting itself. 

 He runs into the train, or off the embank- 

 ment into the river. The whole system 

 was designed to prevent this wreck, yet it 

 was powerless to do so because the engineer 

 overlooked or didn't mind the signal set at 

 danger. If the signal's mandates could be 

 enforced, whether the engineer paid atten- 

 tion to them or not, the much-to-be 

 desired system would be attained. This 

 brings us to the reason why inventors are 

 endeavoring to produce automatic train 

 stops. Present-day railroading is like the 

 country would be were there plenty of laws 

 but no police and courts to enforce them. 

 There are many rules and regulations in 

 train operation, and signals to point the 

 way, but there is no means of enforcing 

 them. Nor will there be, unless the new 

 train stops prove to be all that present-day 

 inventors hope for them. 



All train stops operate on much the same 

 principle. They all seek to set the brakes 

 of an advancing train, should the signal 

 read ' ' Danger. ' ' To set the brakes 

 on any train it is only necessary to 

 open a certain valve connected 

 with the air system on the engine 

 or underneath a car. The auto- 

 matic stops, as a rule, all aim to get 

 at this valve when the train is in 

 danger and open it. The practical 

 method of doing this is hard to 

 work out, and constitutes the 

 barrier which has prevented practi- 

 cal train stops from being invented 

 and put into operation long ago. 

 To stimulate inventors to devise 



DISTANT 

 SIGNAL 



436 



