Patent GB-464013-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to garages for motor vehicles
IPC: E04H6/18
Filed: 1936-07-27
Abstract: 464,013. Garages with rack railways and rack - and - pinion lifts; operating points and switches. ROBIG, A. July 27, 1936, No. 20764. [Classes 78 (iii), 78 (iv), 104 (i), and 104 (ii)] A garage is subdivided by vertical skeleton partitions into a number of wells in each of which a rack railway is fitted having vertical runs 30, 31 at each end of the building and lateral branches 11 therefrom leading to the various floors, the rails on each floor being again branch ed to form a series of closed vertical loops, the highest points of whicl form the storage places 1 ... 5. Cages 12, which receive or deposit cars at the loading point 14, carry pinions engaging the racks and are each fitted with selector mechanism for operating certain of the switches leading to the branch tracks on the floors and to the loops so that each cage moves automatically in a predetermined path to the particular storage place to which it has been allocated and cannot move into a space assigned to another cage. The loading-places 14 for the various wells, are staggered as shown in Fig. 1, and, except at the actual loading stations, the lowest horizontal runs 10 of the railways are raised sufficiently to allow the travelling cages to clear vehicles being run under them to the loading-points of the other cages. After negotiating the run 10, the cages travel up the vertical run 30 and turn off at the particular floor 11 to which they belong, and finally turn into and come to rest at the highest point of a particular loop on that floor. On the return journey the cages complete the passage round the loop and pass down to the loading point via the vertical run 31. Construction of cages. Each cage is hung by bearings 17, Fig. 3, from a shaft 16 having pinions 18 which engage the racks 23, Fig. 4, and rollers 19 which engage the channel guides 24 and keep the pinions in mesh with the racks. A motor 21 on the cage drives the shaft 6 through worm gearing 20 and is energized by slip rings 26 contacting with current mains 25 located adjacent to the racks. The mains preferably are charged from accumulators carried on the cage. Points and switches, construction and actuation of. The switches 23, Fig. 5, in the uptracks are normally closed to direct the cages on the through path, but are swung open about the pivot 27 either by the completion of an electric circuit caused by contact of a stud on the cage with a second stud on the track, or mechanically by the operation of a cam on the track by a striker on the cage ; the cam being linked to the switch. Similar mechanism diverts the cages from the floor tracks into the loops, but in this case the switches are open normally and are closed to effect the diversion. Transferring from one truck to another without switches. The racks may be made wider as shown at 23a and 23b, Fig. 10, at the points where divergence may be necessary and the spacing of the pinions 19, Fig. 12, may be varied to enable them to engage the wider portions and so be diverted on to the branch track. Track-apparatus operates the member 35 and so moves the shafts 16a and 16b slidably in the bearings 32. In some cases every cage may run throughout on a track of special gauge, there being as many tracks of different gauge as there are cages.