Talk:Franklin Leonard Pope

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rail circuit for automatic control of the electric-block signal system

The article mentions: rail circuit for automatic control of the electric-block signal system in the past tense. As far as I know, they are still used, though I didn't try so hard to find a reference. Gah4 (talk) 05:08, 17 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Assertion about automatic control of the electric-block signal system

The article makes this claim...

Pope was awarded several patents for his work in railroad semaphore lock signal systems, the most important of which was his 1872 invention for the rail circuit for automatic control of the electric-block signal system, which was widely used by the major U.S. railways.

While it is true that Pope was awarded several patents for his work in automatic signalling, none of them were commercially successful, and his 1872 rail circuit patent (129,425) did not work. The similar technology that *did* work, and was universally adopted by the railway industry, was the track circuit. This was invented in 1871 by a rival, William Robinson (William Robinson (inventor)). A track circuit functions in a completely different way to Pope's rail circuit; the only similarity is that they use the rails to conduct an electric current.

You will struggle to find any book on the history of railway signalling that mentions Pope, while they all ascribe the invention of the track circuit to Robinson. An easily accessible source is this book published in 1922 by the Signal Section of the American Railway Association. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45179 MAndrewWaugh (talk) 23:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]