Carlisle & Finch
Encyclopedia
Carlisle & Finch is a producer of nautical
Yachting
Yachting refers to recreational sailing or boating, the specific act of sailing or using other water vessels for sporting purposes.-Competitive sailing:...

 equipment and searchlight
Searchlight
A searchlight is an apparatus that combines a bright light source with some form of curved reflector or other optics to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a particular direction, usually constructed so that it can be swiveled about.-Military use:The Royal Navy used...

s, and the inventor of the electric toy train
Toy train
A toy train is a toy that represents a train. It is distinguished from a model train by an emphasis on low cost and durability, rather than scale modeling. A toy train can be as simple as a pull toy that does not even run on track, or it might be operated by clockwork or a battery...

. It is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...

.

History

Founded in 1894 by Robert Finch and Morton Carlisle, the company had two products, an electric toy train and a carbon arc searchlight. It was particularly known for the DCB-224
DCB-224
The model DCB-224 is a high-power spotlight designed and built by Carlisle & Finch. Originally intended for use use as an aero beacon, it was also widely used in marine lighthouses....

 aero beacon, which is no longer produced. The trains, which entered the marketplace in 1897, stood about 5.5 inches tall, were made of metal, colorful, and highly detailed, and ran on metal track with rails two inches apart. They were the first complete electric-powered trains to be introduced to the marketplace.

Three other smaller, short-lived U.S. toy train manufacturers, including Voltamp
Voltamp
Voltamp was an early American manufacturer of toy trains based in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded by Manes Fuld , the son of a Baltimore stove dealer, Voltamp's trains utilized the same 2-inch gauge metal track as Carlisle & Finch, the inventor of the electric toy train...

, adopted Carlisle & Finch's 2-inch track. Carlisle & Finch's offerings were by definition non-standard, its status as the inventor of the electric train notwithstanding.

At the beginning of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the United States government ordered Carlisle and Finch to cease toy train production in order to concentrate on producing searchlights for the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 and United States Coast Guard
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven U.S. uniformed services. The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency...

. At the end of the war, the company did not resume toy train production, choosing instead to concentrate on its profitable searchlight business. Within a decade, it was the largest producer of military searchlights in the country.

Finch bought out Carlisle's share of the company in 1917. Over the ensuing decades, it began producing equipment for civilian use, with its searchlights being used in lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....

s and on offshore oil rig
Oil platform
An oil platform, also referred to as an offshore platform or, somewhat incorrectly, oil rig, is a lаrge structure with facilities to drill wells, to extract and process oil and natural gas, and to temporarily store product until it can be brought to shore for refining and marketing...

s.

Typically, in lighthouses the Aerobeacon was used to replace a Fresnel lens
Fresnel lens
A Fresnel lens is a type of lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses.The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design...

.

External links

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