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along the main line, the “safety points” would stand for the dead end; and should a train start from a siding against the signal, it would, to the driver’s great surprise, run into the ballast “stop,” thereby avoiding the danger of a collision. It would be much better to cause a shock to the branch train than hurl two trains to destruction. In cases where junctions are so constructed that there is no room for these “safety points” to be put in, a signal-box should be placed at some convenient distance from the junction; say a quarter of a mile. The branch train should be kept at it, under the block system of telegraph, until the signalman at the junction could admit it on to the main line. In the case of sidings, I see nothing to interfere with the “safety points” being used. They would make all junctions, sidings, and level crossings quite safe, and would be the means of making engine-drivers very careful to keep a good look out; for they would know that if they overran the points, they would run their trains into a “dead end.” Thus would, at once and for ever, be done away with, one of the most fearful classes of railway accidents.[1]
Another important recommendation I have to make is, that some small instruments, known as “indicators,” should be employed between sidings where shunting is done, or where goods trains are put by for fast express trains to pass, and the interior of high boxes that are far from them. A siding may be a hundred or a hundred and fifty yards from the signal-box. On a dark, and perhaps foggy night, the usual way of performing shunting at the present time is, for the signalman
- ↑ It would not necessarily follow that under the system hero proposed a driver would run his train into the dead end if he overran the points (against the signal). I would advise that a crank be attached to the lower part of the signal post, with two arms, just long enough to reach the nearest rail, having claws at the ends with a fog signal in each claw. This crank should work with the signal, and when the latter was standing at danger, the fog signals (or detonators) would be resting on the rail. As soon as the signal was put to “all-right,” the simultaneous action of the crank would withdraw them clear from the line. Thus the driver would always discover what he was about in time to have a chance of pulling up before reaching the dead end. These throw off lines should be made as long as circumstances would admit.
B
