1870. Received four United States patents on this system; applications filed earlier.
1870. Exhibited an elaborate working model of the system at the American Institute in New York, showing the automatic signal system in operation under control of passing cars.
1871-2. Original inventor and patentee of the closed track circuit system of signaling. Received basic United States and French patents covering same, in 1872. Applications filed, 1871.
1870-71. Original inventor and patentee of the automatic electro-pneumatic signal systems for railroads in use for many years past. Received basic British patent covering this system in 1871. So far as I have been able to ascertain on careful investigation, this patent appears to be the first ever issued anywhere on this subject.
The following brief historical excerpt is taken from a United States patent granted to me on October 20, 1908, No. 901,383, on an electric railway system. This patent is one of a bunch of eight taken out by me on the same date, on the same subject. The excerpt relates to my work in signaling.
"The block signal system herein disclosed is an embodiment of the Robinson electro-pneumatic system now in extensive operation on the Pennsylvania railroad and many other leading railroads in this and other countries, embodying the closed circuit rail system for which a basic U.S. patent was granted to me on August 20, 1872, No. 130,661 (reissued July 7, 1874), the electro-pneumatic signal system disclosed in my British patent of August 30, 1871, No. 2280, the subject matter of both of which patents is disclosed in my French patent of February 29, 1872, No. 94,393. The electro-pneumatic signal system disclosed in the above named patents is also disclosed in my United States patent dated November 7, 1882, No. 267,259. As above indicated the block signal system herein described comprises the system described in my above named patents and now in general use on leading steam railroads, but modified and improved in a way adapting it for reliable and efficient use in connection with electric railroads of the sectional third rail type."
The admission of the above brief history in the above described, and substantially in two other patents of the same date, is, of course, a complete verification of its historical accuracy by the Patent Office.
1872. In 1872 I put the closed track circuit system of signaling in practical and successful operation at several points on different divisions of the Philadelphia and Erie railroad, and on other roads.
1872-79. In 1872 to '79 I installed the closed circuit rail system of automatic signaling on various railroads in Pennsylvania, New England and elsewhere. I perfected the system and put it in as perfect and efficient and durable operation at that time as it is in today, including all its functions of block, switch, road-crossing, overlapping, rear and front, tell-tale and broken rail detector.
1878. Organized and owned the Union Electric Signal Company, based solely on my signal patents, at that time nine in number. Some time afterwards George Westinghouse and his associates bought the controlling interest in the Union Electric Signal Company and reorganized the company under the name of the Union Switch and Signal Company. Thus, the automatic signal system of the Union Switch and Signal Co. consists, in every essential particular, of the Robinson system, pure and simple.