AUTOMATIC RAILWAY COUPLING.
For several months past, some of the goods-wagons working the traffic on the South Dock Railway lines of the East and West India Dock Company have (says the Times) been fitted with a new form of coupling, which possesses several important advantages over the ordinary coupling. Not the least of these are simplicity in construction and automaticity, combined with certainty in action. The coupling is the invention of Mr J. H. Betteley, of 42 Old Broad Street, London, and consists of a long shackle which is attached to the drawbar, and stands out at a slight angle of depression from the carriage or wagon. Connected with this shackle is a hook of special shape, which is attached to a bar running across the carriage front, and having a short lever fixed on either end just outside the buffers. To couple the vehicles, they are run together in the usual way, and, on meeting, the shackle on one carriage runs up the shackle on the other and instantly engages with the hook. Thus the shunter has no dangerous work whatever to perform. To uncouple, he has simply to depress the lever, which action raises the hook and releases the shackle. The hook is so formed that no matter how much bumping of the carriages there may be, it cannot be freed from the shackle without the intervention of the lever, and the combination therefore forms a perfectly safe and reliable coupling. In fact, the whole train could be coupled up automatically, and the engaged hook and shackle then constitute a locking apparatus which prevents the carriages becoming accidentally detached. The coupling can, moreover, be used on any kind of railway vehicle, and it is of no moment if the couplings are not all on the same level, as the higher shackle will always travel up the lower one and engage with the hook of the latter. The apparatus has been examined and the trucks fitted with it have been severely tested by General Hutchinson and Major Marindin, of the Board of Trade, who have given it their united approval. It certainly appears to be well fitted to supersede the ordinary coupling, which has cost so many lives.