1908 - A New Device

[NW Mailing List]

Roanoke Times - January 18, 1908

A NEW DEVICE

Mr. H. W. Broski Secures Patent on New Car Coupler

   Friends of Mr. H. W. Broski, of Marion, Va., who is well-known 
here, will be interested to learn that Mr. Broski has secured a 
patent on a device for coupling steel rails together. The new device 
has many advantages which the old-fashioned fish-plate and bolts 
lack. With the bolts and nuts of an old-fashioned fish-plate it has 
always been necessary to have track walkers who did nothing but walk 
the track and see that the bolts and nuts did not work loose. This, 
taken with the original expense of the bolt and nut plan, which has 
never been very satisfactory, has made the cost of keeping the rails 
together, a large item of expense to a big railroad system. Mr. 
Broski's patent, he thinks, will be much cheaper. In the first-place 
there is but one bolt and one nut. In addition the bolt and nut are 
safe-guarded by a contrivance which it is thought will relieve the 
wear on the bolt and nut. The fish-plate, which will be attached to 
the side of the rail to bind them, has been made so that it has six 
loops, three of which will fit into each rail and extend though to 
the opposite side, where they will be bound fast to that side of the 
rail by a long tapering bolt which will extend through the six loops 
and will have an appliance on the end which will permit of securing 
the bolt so that it cannot possibly slip. As an additional precaution 
a thread will be cut on the end of the bolt so that a nut can be 
placed there. Mr. Broski's son, C. C. Broski, of Bluefield, W. Va., 
has spoken of it to several railroad men and they all thought it 
would be a success. Should it proved so it will answer a long-felt 
want which the railroad companies have been trying to fill for a 
number of years. The speed and weight of modern trains wear out bolts 
and nuts very rapidly and there is always the danger of a loose nut, 
which might be the cause of a serious wreck.

-----------------------------------

- Ron Davis, Roger Link