WIRE TRAMWAYS,

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 132, 18 August 1870, Page 7

WIRE TRAMWAYS,

The " Daily News" recently contained an article on wire tramways, from which we extract the following : — " There is exhibiting on the Brighton Downs, at the present time, a wire tramway five miles in length, in perfect working order. The posts are of iron, instead of wood, and constructed of light bars, instead of solid timber. The seeming wires, are as thick as a walk ing-stick, and from them, at intervals, hung iron boxes, so fixed and so constructed that when the wire, which was in reality an iron rope, began to move, the boxes moved with it, one set passing away, the other coming forwad. In a hollow, puffed the engine which gave life to the whole, and near it the drum around which the rope ran its endless course. Each box waa capable of holding a hundredweight and a-half, and the full ones are made to go on to the terminus, bringing back by their movements the empties. By a clever contrivance, the posts, some of which are seventy feet high, are cleared without a hitch, and by an elaboration of pulleys, large and small, angles and curves are passed without stoppage. The line,though five miles long, thus employs a rope of double that length. The difficulties encoutered are peculiar. The line is bent in two places at right angles, and there are curves and serious undulations of the most trying character. In the length of five miles there are 112" posts. Tbe rope is of charcoal iron, and two inches in circumference. The iron boxes run their course of five miles in about an hour. It is a sixteen-horse power engine w.hich sets- the whole in motion. The line is capable of delivering 210 tons per day of ten hours. The carrying power ranges from ten to 1,000 tons per day. A special arrangement of rails at the end of the line is made, which for the moment detaches the cargo-^box from- the influence of the rope, shifts it in any direction required, yet allows of a resumption of its position on the rope at will, so that, the succession being continuous, the rope never stops. Sharp or sudden curves*, as at Brighton, ar& easily passed, and inclines of one in six or seven are admissible. There are lines at present at Ashby-de-la-Zoucb y France (six), and Pesth, and others are in course of construction in Peru, New Zealand, Brazil, Italy, Sweden, and Barking Creek."