US266203A - Car-reflector - Google Patents

Description

Il'NiTa STATES PATENT Trice,

CHARLES ROBINSON, OF CAMBRIDGEPORT, MASSACHUSETTS.

CAR-REFLECTOR.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 266,203, dated October 17, 1882. Application tiled April l, 1880. Renewed August 14, 1882. (Model.)

To all lwhom zt may concern Be it known that I, CHARLES ROBINSON, of Cambridgeport, in the county ot' Middlesex and` State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improved Car-Reflector; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference beingv had to the accompanying drawings, making a part of this specification- Figure l being a front view ot' my improved reflector applied to a street or horse car, Fig. 2, a horizontal section of the rellectoriu a plane indicated by the line x x, Fig. 1, showing a portion of the lamp-box of a street-car in section with the rellector; Fig. 3, a vertical section of the left-hand mirror.

' Like letters designate corresponding parts in all ofthe figures.

My invention is specially applicable to streetrailway cars,and is designed to greatly increase the illumination thereof both inside and outside of the same without increasing the number, size, or 'cost ofthe lights.

By my invention Iplaee in each lamp-box of the car (there being' ordinarily one in each corner thereof, two provided with signallight holes with colored glass shining outward, besides shining inward) two plane-faced reilectors, A A, one on each side of the lamp B, far enough laterally therefrom to allow free or unobstructed passage of the light out through the signal-glass C, where they are used, and arranged at such au angle horizontally as to throw the rellected lightdirectly back into the car, or nearly so, this angle being forty-live degrees, or approximately that, to the front or outer side ot' the lamp-box, substantially as shown. Besides this oblique arrangement ot' .the reflectors in a horizontal direction, the

plane a of the reiiectors in the middle or opposite to the light is vertical, or nearly so, and, in addition,inorder'to obtain the bestand a far better effect I add plane-faced rellectors b c at the top and bottom ofthe plane a,and inclined in a vertical plane from said plane toward the light, substantially as shown in the drawings, the inclination being such as to cause the light received from the lamp to b e reflected back into the car iu parallel or approximately parallel directions both in horizontal and vertical planes. More than two oblique faces b c might be used in addition to the vertical middle face, a; but this number is a proper one for general use and sufliciently illustrates my invention.

Vhile I'use plane-faced mirrors and reilect the light thus in a general nearly parallel direction, yet the varying angle at which the light strikes various parts of each plane of the mirror causes suicient divergence to illuminate the whole car brilliantly with the four lamps usually employed in each street-car.

I propose to usethe doublereector, especially as it is desirable not only to illuminate completely the entire interior of the car, butat the sides ot' 4the car outside. In fact my reflectors, when applied to all the lamps of a street-car, not only brightly light up the whole interior of the car, but at both sides outside of the car through the windows thereof, and also both in front and rear of the car, the reflectors at the front end of the car lighting up the rear by shining back through the car and its end windows or glasses, and the rear reflectors lighting up in front ofthe carin the same way.

While these rellectors are specially designed l'or street-cars, they may be used in other cars and in carriages, and, indeed, anywhere under similar arrangement where applicable, especially in room-corners.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

The combination, with the lamp B, of therellectors A A, composed of vertical faces a and inclined faces b c, all arranged obliquely to the light in zuhorizontal direction, and the faces b c obliquely to the light in a vertical direction, substantially as and for the purpose herein specitied.

The foregoing specification signed by me this 29d day of March, 1880.

CHARLES ROBINSON.

Witnesses:

H. L. HAzELToN, W ALTER ADAMS.

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