Untitled record

Application filed May 1, 1886. Serial No. 200,853. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Harry B. Cox, of Cincinnati, in the county of Hamilton and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful 5 Improvements in· Electric-Bell Cords; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, which will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same, ic reference being had to the accompanying drawings, and to the letters of reference marked thereon, which form part of this specification.

My invention has relation to automatic devices for coupling electric-bell cords between 15 the cars of a railway-train, and has for its object to furnish a device for this purpose by which the two parallel wires may be easily and instantly coupled together, which connection shall be sufficiently tight for use, but which 20 will permit of the connection being broken by being pulled apart when the cars are uncoupled from each other, either when such uncoupling is done purposely or accidentally.

With these, objects in view my invention 25 consists in the improved construction, arrangement, and combination of parts, which I shall now proceed to fully describe, the specific points of novelty in which I shall particularly point out in the claims hereto ap30 pended.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 is a view in side elevation of my coupling, two of the rubber, metal, or hard-woodside pieces being removed, the interior arrangement of 35 the parts being outlined in dotted lines. Fig.

is a bottom plan view of the lower member, or a top plan view of the upper member, of my coupling. (Note that the two members are duplicates in construction, and in all cases a 40 top view of one is a bottom view of the other, and a right hand side view of one is a lefthandside view of the other. In this description I shall confine myself to the lower member, except when the upper member is directly 45 specified.) Fig. 3 is a top plan view. Fig. 4 is a sectional view taken on theline®rof Fig.

3. Fig. 5 is a similar sectional view taken on the line y y of Fig. 3. Fig. 6 is an outside . view of the metallic portion of one side of my 50 coupling. Fig. 7 is an inside view thereof, and Fig. 8 is a side view of the central hardwood or rubber central piece of the coupling.

Like letters of reference mark the same parts in all the figures wherever they occur.

Referring to the drawings by letter, A and 55 B are the two members of my coupling,shown coupled together in Fig. 1. (The further, description will, as before stated, be confined to the lower member, A, unless special exception is made, and as the members A and B are 60 duplicates,, this description will answer for both.) The member A is composed of seven distinctive parts—viz., two metallic side pieces, C O', two metal, hard-wood, or rubber side pieces, D D', two springs, E E', and a cen- 65 tral hard-wood or rubber separator, or insulator, F. The side pieces 0 O' are provided at their outer ends with outward-curved perforated ears c c, and have side cleats, e' c', and flanges c c. The springs E E' are hard-sol- 70 dered and screwed to the metallic side pieces C O', the screws being marked e e. The central separator or insulator, F, rests between the metallic pieces 0 O', being inclosed, except a small central portion,by the springsEE'and 75 flanges c e of the metallic side pieces C O', being securedin such position byscrews//. The hard-wood or rubber side pieces D D'are rectangular in outline,' and are shorter than the metallic side pieces C O'. They are secured 80 to said side pieces by screws d d.

The parts being secured together, as described, there will be formed a complete member, which consists of two complete conducting structures separated and insulated from 85 each other. The two parallel wires G- G, which pass through the train, are connected to these members by passing through the perforations in the outward-curved ears c c, and thence around the clip c' c'. go

When it is desired to couple the cord, the two sections, made up as described, are engaged as shown in Fig. 1, the inner ends of the two members overlapping each other, making two distinct lines of metallic connection com- 95 pletely insulated from each other, and these ends are held in such coupled position by the springsEE'. In this position the connection is sufficiently tight for use, but is such that a smart pull will break the connection. The 100 breaking may be done, when desired, by hand, but should the cars of a train become uncoupled by accident the connection will be automatically broken, thus giving the alarm

350,293 to the engineer. The adjoining sides of the metallic side pieces C C' are coincidently or correspondingly curved to fit each other, as shown at c' c', and the contact-surfaces of the 5 insulating-pieces F are likewise curved, so as to make a perfect fit between these parts.