THE WIRE ROPE TRAMWAY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 499, 10 November 1871, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE WIRE ROPE TRAMWAY.

The Australasian gives the following details of the wire tramway at Brighton, England :—“ This system may be described as consisting of an endless wire rope, furining over a series of pulleys carried by substantial posts, which are ordinarily about 200 ft. apart. This passes at one end round a drum, driven by steam, water, or oven horse power, at a speed of from four to eight miles per hour. The boxes in which the load is carried are hung on the roap at the loading end by a wooden saddle, about 14 inches long, lined with leather, and having foursmall wheels, with a curved pendant, which maintains the box in perfect equilibrium while travelling, and most ingeniously, but simply, enables it to pass the supporting posts and pulleys. By a sliding arrangement the boxes or buckets are easily emptied by tilting, without unshipping the saddle from the rope. The boxes can be made to carry from lewt. to 10cwt., and the proportions of the line andtheloadinganddischarglngarrangements can be varied to suit any particular requirement, ranging from 10 tons to 1,000 tons per diem. At each end of the line are rails placed to catch the small wheels attached to the saddles of the boxes, by which means the weight, having acquired momentum, is lifted from the rope, and thus, suspended from a fixed rail or platform, can be run to any point for loading or emptying, and again run on to the rope for transport, the succession being continuous and the rope never requiring to be stopped for loading cr unloading. Curves of sharp radius are easily passed, as well as steep inclines, and its applicability to cross rivers, streams, and mountains, or hilly districts, will be apparent at a glance, as the cost of construction increases but little under such circumstances, while that of a road or railroad is, perhaps, increased tenfold. The rope being continuous, no power is lost on undulating ground, the descending loads help those ascending. In (he caseof lines for heavy traffic, where a series of loads, necessarily not less than scwt, to lOcwt. each, must be carried, a pair of stationary supporting ropes, with an endless running rope for the motive power, will be employed ; hut the method of supporting, and the peculiar advantage of crossing almost any nature of country with a goods line without much more engineering work or space than is necessary for fixing an electric telegraph, without bridges, without embankments, and without masonry, exists equally in both brunches of the system. In the minor applications, such as short transport from mines to railways, the landing or shipping of goods in harbors and roadsteads, and the carriage of agricultural produce on farms, some peculiar features of the system render it specially advantageous. Amongst these are the facility with which power can be transmitted by the rope and taken off at any required ] ioiut for mining or other pm poses. In lines terminating on the seaboard, or on great rivers, a manifest advantage is secured in the facility for taking goods direct to or from ships in harbor or roadstead without transhipment into lighters. • Seen from a distance, the posts which carry the tramway at Brighton might be mistaken for telegraph poles but a nearerinspection revealsa second line of wires on the same level, and upon these-tiyo.,,'sviie-j , op§ .lines, snpported .on jßtiMidards.aK intervals:vary iug form 300 ft. to 1,()90ft. apart—according to the requirements of the ground—are suspended iron boxes for the carriage of the goods, which boxes pass on noiselessly and steadily, carried forward by the rope at the uniform rate of five miles the hour—the time required for performing the entire circuit of the line. In laying out these five miles at Brighton the opportunity has been taken of exemplifying the woiking of the system under every variety of difficulty that could possibly present itself, thus we have on one part of the line an incline of one in six, up and down which the rope and boxes work with perfect facility, the descending weights assisting those which are ascending, then there are several bends loss acute, two instances of absolutely right angles which are passed with the greatest ease ; in some instances the standards are carried to the height of 70ft., to meet inequalities of the ground, undulating and hilly country being more trying to this system than craggy and mountainous—such as that for which this plant is designed, and where, from the long reaches laken, fewer posts will be required. The line is rather over five miles long: there are 112 posts, or standards in the whole length; these standards can either be made of light angle and band iron neatly put together, as in the present case, or of wood. The rope is mode of charcoal iron, is 2in. in circumference, each strand as well as the centre of the rope has a hempen core, to secure ductility. The power employed to drive the rope is a portable 1 G-horse power engine. Some of the spans are 500 ft. and 200 ft. in length, and ingenuity lias been shown in devisirlg every possible mode of testing the merits of this system of transport; and we are bound to record that all difficulties have been overcome with' complete success The line is capable of delivering 240 tons per day'jofiO hours, i.e.. 120 tons in each' dlfectidli, Ul "'' .