Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

Registered UK Charity (No. 1154342)

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 167,649 pages of information and 247,065 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

1851 Great Exhibition: Official Catalogue: Class V.: W. Bridges Adams

From Graces Guide

510. ADAMS, W. BRIDGES, 1 Adam Street, Adelphi - Patentee and Designer.

Light locomotive engine for railways, named "Ariel's Girdle," on four wheels, coupled to a four-wheeled composite tender; it makes a steady eight-wheeled machine, capable of lateral flexure for sharp curves. The tender contains water beneath the floor, and has a sledge break of peculiar construction, acting with friction on the rails to save the wheels. its handle being within reach of the driver.

Eight-wheeled double railway carriage for first and second-class passengers. The wheels are left free to move laterally by means of swinging links and shackles, which enable the carriage to run round curves of 250 feet radius. A sledge break of peculiar construction is suspended from this carriage. The locomotive engine produced at the Airedale Foundry, Leeds, by Kitson, Thompson, and Hewitson; the carriage portion produced at Birmingham by Brown and Marshall.

A spring for the locomotive engine, formed of patent ribbed steel; the rib, working in a corresponding hollow of the adjoining plate, reduces the friction and preserves the parallelism of the plates.

Patent grease-tight axle-box.

Model of a patent fish-jointed rail, bedded to the upper lip in longitudinal timber sleepers. Drawings illustrating the mode of forming this railway. Drawings of patent carriages, etc., low-hung for agricultural railways. A non-recoiling patent atmospheric railway buffer for terminal stations.

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