Wire-way.
A wire or wire-rope suspended from posts, and forming a way upon which loaded carriages traverse for the conveyance of freight.
This mode of transportation was described and represented in a work written by Mandey and
Moxon, and published in
London in 1696.
Hodgson's wire-tramway, lately introduced into
England, is substantially similar to the elevated railways which were patented in
England in 1825 by
Palmer,
Fisher, and
Dick.
See elevated Railway.
An endless wire-rope is carried on a series of grooved pulleys, supported in pairs upon stout posts ordinarily about fifty yards, but in some cases at much farther intervals apart.
At one end the rope passes around a clip drum, worked by a stationary engine; at the other end it passes around a plain cylinder.
In one erected in
Leicestershire, for conveying stone from the quarry to a railway station, a distance of three miles, the rope, 1/2 inch in diameter, is driven at the rate of four miles an hour by a 16 horse-power engine working with ten pounds of steam; this may be increased to five or six miles an hour.
The boxes or carriages are about two feet long, one foot to eighteen inches wide, and six inches deep, their ordinary load being one cwt. They are not clamped to the rope, but adhere to it by friction; an upright stanchion on each side is bent over at top, and the two ends are connected by a block of wood which is hollowed out beneath so as to fit the rope, and pass over the suspension pulleys.
The hourly delivery of stone at the station is ten tons, and the empty boxes are returned at the same rate as the full ones are delivered.
Where the amount of freight to be accommodated is large, it is proposed to use a stout fixed rope to support the carriages and a lighter traveling rope to pull them.
An elevated tramway at
Brighton, England, on the Hodgson plan, is five miles long, and is capable of carrying each way one hundred and twenty tons per day of ten hours, two hundred and forty tons in all. When working to its full capacity both ways the loads on the opposite wires tend to counterpoise each other, and the expenditure of power is reduced to a minimum.
Various other plans on the same
general principle, but differing in detail, are in operation in various parts of the world.
In some the rope supporting the carriages is movable, and in others it is stationary, the carriages being drawn by an auxiliary rope.
Havens's automatic wire-rope railway (
Fig. 7306) is particularly designed for loading and unloading vessels, or conveying freight from one point to another in the same vicinity.
The rope is stationary, and the movement of the carriage is effected by its own gravity.
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Havens's automatic wire-rope way. |
Fig. 7306 illustrates the apparatus at work discharging coal from a barge.
Two tall poles
a b are erected near the wharf.
The first has a hinged outrigger
c which can move only in a vertical plane.
The loaded bucket is hooked on to the fall
d, and run up by the hoisting-engine until a knot in the rope strikes the outrigger, which is then lifted with the bucket until it becomes vertical, and the bucket is brought directly over the rope
e. The fall is then slacked, and an attendant on the elevated platform guides the rollers of the bucket directly on to the rope, along which it descends until arriving at the point of discharge, where the load is automatically dumped and the bucket transferred to the return rope
f. B (
Fig. 7307) shows the
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bucket, which is suspended from a larger and smaller connected pulley by an upright bar extending upward from the bail.
At the side of the bail is a slotted piece
g, slipping over an upwardly projecting stud, and holding the bucket horizontal; to this is attached a rod
h, which, when the bucket arrives at its destination, is arrested by a stop disengaging the catch, and allowing the bucket to tilt and discharge its contents.
The supports, which prevent the rope from sagging and at the same time permit the buckets to pass freely along the line, are shown at
C. These depend from arms attached to the posts, and in them the rope is held fast by keys
i.
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Details of wire-rope way. |
After discharging, the buckets are transferred to the returnrope
f, by the device shown in elevation at
D and in plan at
E. The tongue
k′ of the bent lever
k is ordinarily held in the raised position shown by the dotted lines, but when struck by the pulleys as the bucket passes it is depressed and the bucket runs along it, and some distance up the rope
f, until its momentum is checked and it commences its return movement; it then proceeds along
f to the place of loading, and on passing the last suspending pulley, dependent from the post
b, runs upon the rope
m having a weight
n attached, and, raising the weight, descends by its own gravity into the vessel's hold to be reloaded.
F G are respectively a plan and elevation of a switch, by which the buckets may at any point of their course be turned off and directed on to another line of rope.
n′ is a curved metallic arm connected by a double pivot
o to a support, so as to have both transverse and vertical motion; at the opposite end is a standard
p, on top of which is a small roller
q, and which is lifted by an attached cord and weight
s.
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Blind-wiring machine. |
Fastened to the framework of the device is a track
r, on which the roller
q runs, and which bends downwardly between its two supports.
While the arm
n is drawn up by the weight
s it remains at the highest point of the track
r, and in line with the upper rope, but when a bucket arrives and slides upon the arm
n′, its gravity causes the arm to descend until it is arrested at a point directly opposite to the end of the rope
f,′, to which the bucket is to be transferred; stops
u u along the track prevent the bucket running off the arm, until it is brought into the correct position.
