Perhaps I was thinking of trains but then again, somewhere in this old noggin I saw a reference about the brake whistle being used for a warning. Don't know if they handed out free Brandy or not as in the following adventure.
Here's something interesting from
The Illustrated London News:
[ILN Jun 17 1865] - The accident at Staplehurst on the South Eastern Railway is remembered chiefly for the survival of the trains most eminent passenger, Charles Dickens. At the time of the derailment, he was reading the manuscript of Our Mutual Friend while on his way back to London after a visit to France. The accident should have been avoided, despite the absence of two sections of rail, if various safety procedures had been carried out. A labourer should have protected the line by placing a detonator every250yd from theviaductforl,000ydat which point he should have placed two more 10 yd apart and remained there with a red flag. Theforeman, however, hadplâced him only 554yd away, and since there were only two detonators to hand, the foreman in-structed that they were only to be used in the event of jog; it was a sunny afternoon. The shortened distance made it impossible for the driver to stop after he had seen the red flag, and the guard failed to realise the urgency on hearing
the brake whistle, applying only the screw brake and not Cremar's patent brakes with which the leading van and two coaches were fitted. Dickens was unhurt and went round the victims administering what he thought was a helpful restorative - brandy. Some of them died immediately, which puzzled Dickens, occasioning him to note that 'Mr Dickenson was the first person the brandy saved' There is no doubt that Dickens' nervous system never recovered from the accident. One of his companions on the protracted reading tours recorded that Dickens would writhe with nervousress whenever an express gathered speed. On the fifth anniversary of the accident, 9 june 1870, Dickens died in his fifty-eighth year. Whatever else, a platelayer's error deprived us of a solution to The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
Must have been Trains as here is another story
from the UK
