IF articles

Abstract - Little is known of how the Alarm Firing Device by Scartazzi-Opessi¹ originated, developed and worked. Here, an attempt is made at supplementing the meagre news available. At the same time, it should be noticed how A. SCARTAZZI, a mere draftsman at S.F.A.I., in Milan, developed the Device and how a Company, Opessi Ltd. in Turin, collaborated to its final setting up. The evolution of the Alarm Firing Device ran parallel to quite a large part of the history of the Italian railways from S.F.A.I. to the Mediterranean Railways to the Italian State Railways. Over twenty years were needed for the device to be granted official status and it was kept in use till the introduction
of such supports to driving as R.S.M., followed by more modern ones, progressively made it less useful till its disappearance was decided. Based on the drawings, quite likely by A. SCARTAZZI himself, and some of the blueprints in the personal collection of Mr. C. ZENATO, engineer, the functioning of the Device is examined in its development and a short survey is dedicated to the way in which it worked (Fig. 1).