WIRE TRAMWAYS.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 694, 6 August 1870, Page 3

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 ol light bars, instead of solid timber. The seeming wires are as thick as a walking-stick, and from them, at intervals, hung iron boxes, so fixed and go 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 forward. 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 was capable of holding a hundredjweight and a-half, and the full ones are made to go on to the terminus, I bringing back by their movements the (empties. By a clever contrivance, the • posts, some of which are seventy feet fleet high, are cleared without a hitch, |and by an elaboration of pulleys, large fand small, angles and curves are passed Iwithout stoppage. The line, though ffive miles long, thus employs a rope of that length. The difficulties Rencountered are peculiar. The line is sbent in two places at right angles, and Ithere are curves and serious undulaItions of the most trying character, lln the length of five miles there are |ll2 posts. The rope is of charcoal and two inches in circumference. iThe iron boxes run their course of five tmiles in about an hour. It is a sixteen engine which sets the [whole in motion. The line is capable jof delivering 240 tons per day of ten fhours. The carrying power ranges ten to 1000 tous per day. A sspecial arrangement of rails at the end Jof the line is made, which for the moment detaches the cargo-box from the influence of the rope, shifts it in any required, yet allows of a resumption of its position on the rope at so that, the succession beiug continuous, the rope never stops. Sharp [ ; or sudden curves, as at Brighton, are passed, and inclines of one in six [;or seven are admissible. There are idines at present at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, (six), and Pestb, and others flare in course of construction in Peru, ■New Zealand, Brazil, Italy, Sweden, I and Barking Creek."