Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/256

 242

��Popular Science Monthly

��Automatic Flagmen to Warn Motor- Car Drivers

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��The automatic flagman at a cross- ing. At right, de- tail of four differ- ent installations

IN these days of automobiles and motor-cycles, something more than the old- fashioned "Stop, look and listen" sign is necessary at railroad cross- ings. Such signs are entirely too unobtrusive to attract the atten- tion of a motor- car driver going r.t sixty miles an hour. At night they are practi- cally worthless.

A striking ex- periment has re- sulted in the in- vention of the "automatic flagman." At the approach of a train it rings a loud gong, and waves a bright red disk by day and a red lamp by night. So sensi- tive is the Iniman e\'e to red and to motion that such a warning can li.irdly escape notice.

The ilexice consists of a

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��Single track, battery installation

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��wealher-i^roof case containing the ope- rating mechanism and a signal disk upon which are mounted stand- ard ruby-red switch lances with an incandescent lamp between. Energy' is sup- plied by a small electric motor, which operates the mechanism that rings the gong and waves the disk.

The motor receives its energy from storage batter- ies, lighting circuits or trol- ley circuits, depending on the character of the installa- tion. On steam roads the track is insulated and bond- ed for the desired distance away from the signal and is charged with current from a small battery. On entering this block the train completes the circuit and operates a relay, which connects the motor with the power circuit.

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��Double track llOv A. C. installation

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��Trolley contactor circuit. Trolley voltage

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��Third-rail contactor circuit. Third-rail voltage

��A Western Railroad's Clay Locomotives

HEN a western railroad wanted to convey the information to the traveling public that its locomotives were of the newest and biggest design it called in Emory P. Seidcl, the sculjitor, and asked him to make models of them. Mr. Seidel searched some time for a suit- able substance out of which to construct his models and finally decided upon a greasy composition from Italy which closely reseml)les clay. '\hv models are five feet in height and represent three weeks' work on the part of the sculptor. The cost was li\ e hundred dollars.

It took a sculptor three weeks to fashion these locomotives in a clay composition

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