p. 166 | TELEGRAPHING FROM A MOVING TRAIN

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, March 17, 1885

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 62, No. 11

TELEGRAPHING FROM A MOVING TRAIN.

Lucius S. Phelps, electrician, has been engaged during the past sixty days in constructing a section of the socophone, or railway telegraph system, of which he is the inventor, along one track of the Harlem River branch of the New York and New Haven River Railroad, from the Harlem River station to the junction with the main line at New Rochelle. It is designed to establish communication between moving trains; also to give instant and constant communication between trains in motion and any fixed station, “way” or “terminal,” so that the exact situation of any train on a road can be ascertained at any moment; and, if desired, a passenger while traveling at the rate of forty miles an hour can send a message to the station which he has left behind, or announce his approach to the point of his destination. Mr. Phelps recently promised the directors of the company interested to demonstrate yesterday the practical value of his invention. To test his instruments he had the operator at the Harlem River station make a trip over the line on Tuesday afternoon. Shortly after starting, Mr. Conley, conductor of train No. 15, including baggage car No. 116, containing the train apparatus, sent the following message to Mr. Phelps:— “On the Road, Jan. 27.—To Lucius S. Phelps, Esq.: Accept congratulations from the employees of the New York, New Haven, and Hudson River Railroad Company for your success in your great undertaking. H. A. CONLEY, Conductor.

Before the train had gone more than two or three miles a reply was received on board the train, giving Mr. Phelps’s thanks. Yesterday the President and directors of the company entered Mr. Conley’s train at Harlem River Station at 2 o’clock P. M., to see a formal test of the invention. The President telegraphed: “We are at Williams Bridge (West Farms) all right.” Other messages were exchanged.—New York Tribune.