Wireless Stops Train

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 4, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 14.

Wireless Stops Train

Drawing a train of twelve cars and rushing over the rails at a speed of forty-five miles an hour on a stretch of track near the city of Toronto, a powerful engine of the Canadian Pacific railroad service was brought to a quick standstill, with the throttle wide open and the engineer standing in his cab, a mere spectator, like those present with him, to view the wonder. The brakes had been applied on the big locomotive and train of cars by a wireless wave of electricity. The engineer's hand had nothing whatever to do with the stoppage of the train at this high speed, and to those in the cab of the engine there was something absolutely uncanny in the demonstration. It seemed to them that some giant hand had seized the equipment while in mid career and held it with ease.

Experiments with a wireless train-control system have been conducted by the Canadian Pacific railroad company since last May, and this recent demonstration was the culmination of a long series of successful tests. This automatic train-control system is the invention of a Toronto man, Frank W. Prentice. Thirteen years ago there was a head-on collision between a stock-train and a passenger-train on the line in which a friend of Prentice was involved. The latter worried about it a good deal, and that night he had a dream about placing a wireless generator on the forward car to prevent such accidents. Awakening with the idea in his head, he commenced working on it, and has been at it ever since. For a long time he was unsuccessful, but one day while he was passing a soda-fountain he noticed a little ball which was kept bounding in the air by the force of the water. This little incident supplied him with the missing idea, and the late demonstration was the result. —Selected.