Every-day Science: Volume 7. The Conquest of Time and Space

by Henry Smith Williams; Edward Huntington Williams

It should not be understood that the Westinghouse air brake was the only one, or the only type of brake, devised and brought to practical perfection. For a time a vacuum brake, which utilized atmospheric pressure, offered keen rivalry. But eventually the type of brake perfected by Mr. Westinghouse, modified in certain details in the various countries of Europe and America, gained precedence, which it still retains.

AUTOMATIC COUPLINGS

The perfection of the air brake removed one great source of danger that menaced the crews of freight trains. There still remained another almost as great, particularly in the matter of maiming its victims, when not actually killing them. This was the old method of coupling freight cars as practiced in America. There were few old-time trainmen, indeed, who could show a complete set of full length digits, the buffers of the old-fashioned couplings being responsible for the lost and shortened members.

The freight brakeman has to make scores of couplings on every trip. And he literally took his life in his hands upon each and every occasion of making a coupling by the old method.

This old form of couplings consisted of two buffers—one on each car—joined together by an iron link about fifteen inches long, a movable pin inserted at either end holding the link in place and thus joining the cars. When a coupling was to be made the brakeman raised the pin in the buffer of the stationary car and tilted it at an angle in the pin-hole at the top of the buffer so that, while it remained raised, the jar of the striking buffers at the moment of coupling caused it to fall into place and complete the coupling. The link was left hanging in the moving car which was being shunted in to be coupled; but in this position the projecting end was so low that it would miss the hole in the opposite buffer, and thus fail to make the coupling, unless raised and inserted just at the moment before the buffers came together.

This raising and inserting of the link was the dangerous part of making a coupling. It could only be done by the brakeman while standing between the cars. And he must raise the link, insert it, and remove his hand in a fraction of a second if the car was moving at a fair rate of speed, otherwise his fingers or hand would be caught between the buffers and crushed. And a crushed hand or arm meant subsequent amputation, for the force of the collision between the buffers crushed the bones beyond repair.

There was a way in which the coupling could be made whereby the hand was not endangered. This was by using a stick for raising and guiding the link into the buffer. Some railroads at first furnished sticks for this purpose. But no brakeman would stoop to use them. Had he done so he would have been hooted and jeered off the road by his train mates. And so his pride made him risk his limbs and his life, and fostered the recklessness of the old-time brakeman.

But in 1879 Mr. Eli Janney, of Pittsburg, patented an automatic car-coupler that was both simple and effective; and in 1887 the Master Car Builders' Association accepted this type of coupler. A little later the U. S. Government, influenced by the appalling loss of life among the brakemen, passed laws compelling all cars to be equipped with some form of automatic coupling device, and naturally the Janney coupling was the one adopted. In using this coupling the brakeman did not have to step into the dangerous position between the cars, either for making the coupling, or disconnecting the car. The act of coupling was done automatically, while the uncoupling was effected by the use of a lever operated from the side of the car.

A somewhat technical description of this coupling is as follows:

"The Janney coupling consists of a steel jaw fitted on one side with a knuckle or L-shaped lever turning on a vertical pin; this knuckle when being swung inward lifts a locking pin which subsequently drops and so prevents the return of the knuckle. An identical coupler is fitted to the end of the adjacent vehicle, and, so long as both or either of the knuckles are open when the vehicles come into contact, coupling will be effected; to uncouple, it is only necessary to raise either of the locking pins, by means of a chain or lever at the side of the vehicle. The knuckles have each a hole in them to permit of the use of the old link and pin coupler, when such a fitting is met with. At first, this coupling gave some trouble through the locking pins occasionally creeping upward, but in the larger model, which represents the later form, there is an automatic locking pawl that prevents this motion; owing, however, to the pawl being attached to the lifting shackle, it in no way interferes with the pin being raised when disconnecting."