Great story Karl; thanks so much for sharing! I am surprised it has not
surfaced before on our list or even an article in Trains magazine or somewhere.
I know when I started my RR safety career C&NW had an old film about the
progress of safety on the RR much of it focused (no pun intended) on train
accident prevention. There was an obvious splice where a deletion had been
made. I was told it was an "innovation" that backfired so I wonder if C&NW &
other RR's had the same issue with this or other devices as the Burlington did?
Gerald
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
From: qrailroadman@yahoo.com
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 15:25:26 +0000
Subject: [CBQ] Vapor-Clarkson Corp.
Early in the search for "Alertness Monitoring Devices" railroad's applied
"technology" that required high frequency electrical current to pass THROUGH
the Engineer's body. This HF signal caused the device to react when the
Engineer touched any metallic object in the cab and, therefore, satisfied
itself that the occupant of the seat was alive. The BLE voiced serious
objections to the device on the grounds that long-term physical harm may result
from the continuous presence of HF current in the body. I do not remember the
manufacturer of these "high tech" fly catchers but, after an incident on the
St. Charles Air Line that completely shut down the Q, as well as ALL operations
that normally used the Air Line, the RR was given the proper "incentive" to
remove them - - - IMMEDIATELY !!
A Q transfer job was ascending the Air Line over Canal St. with a switch engine
equipped with one of these terrific inventions. The alertor sounded its alarm
and the Engr. frantically began touching everything in the cab as well as
"beatin" on the "reset" button, all to no avail. Eventually the electrical
dept. was called upon to, in effect, rewire the control circuits in the cab of
the engine to restore it to a usable condition again. An engine was called from
Clyde to attempt to move the disabled eng. and cars from the Air Line but the
malfunction prevented the PC sw. from closing and air being restored to the
train. Nothing moved until the offending device had been rendered harmless by
the electricians.
As for the Vapor-Clarkson Corp., it was eventually sold to the Singer Sewing
Machine Co. and continued to produce RR related products for several years.
This company was again restructered and became Vapor Corp. doing business out
of Canada.
Karl
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