1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class V.: James Samuel
616. SAMUEL, JAMES, C. E., 3 Duke Street, Adelphi.
Patent cast-iron, timber-bedded, wedge-trough permanent way for railways.
Patent fish-chair, or improved joint-chair, applicable to existing railways without removing the present sleepers; and giving continuity to the rails.
[There are two kinds of rail-bearings, the chair bearings and continuous bearings for rails.
With chair bearings the rails are supported at fixed points, from 3 feet to 41 feet apart, the rail bridging near the intervals.
With continuous bearings the rails are laid or bedded upon timbers, termed sleepers, which are in their turn bedded upon the ground, or rather, upon that preparation of the railroad for the permanent way, ballasting. The connection between the rail and the sleeper is made so that the two act together, and are borne in every part alike by the ballast.
A transverse tie is required to keep the rails in gauge, or immoveably at the same distance apart; as the conical form given to the face of the tire of the bearing wheels of railway carriages, to enable them to run upon curves without dragging, induces a constant effort to force rails. At low speeds, this tendency is not felt; but at high speed, this derangement is very manifest. The sleeper commonly used is of timber in the log, cut into two halves, so as to present its section uppermost, and its round hard surface to the earth. The joint chair is intended to secure the abutting ends of the rails.— W. H.]
Patent improved "donkey-engine," for pumping water into steam boilers, to be used in locomotives instead of the present "feed-pumps."
Sectional model of patent double-cylinder "continuous expansion" steam-engine, in which the steam is made to exhaust from the first to the second cylinder, the cranks being set at right angles.