US24778A - Moses hall - Google Patents

Description

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

MOSES HALL, JR., OF OSBORN, OHIO, ASSIGNOR TO HIMSELF AND SAML. H. JUDY, OF SAME PLACE.

CATTLE-GATE FOR RAILROADS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 24,778, dated July 12, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, MOSES HALL, J r., of Osborn, Greene county, Ohio, have invented a new and useful Cattle-Gate for Railroad- Crossings; and I hereby declare the following to be a full and exact description of the same, reference being had to the accompany ing drawings, making part of this specication, in Which- Figure l is a perspective view of the gate in a closed position, and Fig. 2 a section at an Fig. l exhibiting the gate open to permit the passage of a train.

My improvement relates to that class of railroad gates which are automatically removed or opened by a passing train and consists of an arrangement of springs which serve to hold the gate in a vertical position except when depressed by the wheels of the locomotive which act serves to open or fold back the gate.

A represents a railroad track.

The gate consists of a number of pickets or bars B projecting rectangularly from an axle or shaft C.

D, D, are stout metallic springs bowed slightly upward at their middle and attached to the gate a short distance above its axle. The rear ends of these springs pass through staples E7 E, attached to the track; heels el, upon the springs preventing their escape from the staples.

Operation: On the approach of the locomotive in the direction indicated by the arrow the flange of one of its foremost wheels strikes and depresses the spring D and as the spring is prevented by traction, and by the direction of the pressure from running backward through its staple E the efect is to instantaneously fold the gate over, away from the approaching train, as eX- hibited in Fig. 2, While the spring D slips freely through the staple E so as to offer no resistance to such motion of the gate. A train approaching from the other direction operates the gate in a, similar manner through the agency of the spring D; the gate always moving in the same direction as the train. After the passage of the train the spring which was instrumental in folding back the gate becomes effective for returning it to a vertical position.

In the event of the springs being broken or obstructed so as to cease to be effective the engine and cars would of themselves bend down and pass over the gate without liability to be thrown oli' the track. This constitutes a marked feature of superiority distinguishing my plan from any in which the cross bar is placed above the track.

I claim as new and of my invention herein and desire to secure by Letters Patent- Constructing or cattle guard or gate with its cross bar or shaft below the rail of the railroad track and operated by springs substantially as described.

In testimony of which invention, I hereunto set my hand.

MOSES HALL, JUNIOR. Witnesses:

GEO. H. KNIGHT, SAMUEL H. JUDY.

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