WILLIAM ROBINSON.
Witnesses:
John Rooney,
Van Wyck Foster.
DR. WILLIAM ROBINSON[2]
Electrical and Mechanical Engineer
Fellow American Institute of Electrical Engineers Graduate of Wesleyan University with Degrees of A.B. and A.M. Post Graduate of Boston University with Degree of Ph.D.
Data Notes
Originator and patentee (basic patents, 1872) of the Closed Track Circuit System of Automatic Electric Signaling, the basis of practically every automatic electric block signal system in use on railroads today.
The following brief description and comments on this Robinson closed track circuit system are from the Third Annual Report of the Block Signal and Train Control Board to the Interstate Commerce Commission, dated November 22, 1910, pages 177 et seq.
"The Track Circuit
"Perhaps no single invention in the history of the development of railway transportation has contributed more toward safety and despatch in that field than the track circuit. By this invention, simple in itself, the foundation was obtained for the development of practically every one of the intricate systems of railway block signaling in use today wherein the train is, under all conditions, continuously active in maintaining its own protection.
"In other words the track circuit is today the only medium recognized as fundamentally safe by experts in railway signaling whereby a train or any part thereof may retain continuous and direct control of a block signal while occupying any portion of the track guarded by the signal."