Patent GB-733952-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to transportation apparatus
Inventor: KENDALL MYRON AVERY
IPC: B61B13/12
Filed: 1953-04-24
Abstract: 733,952. Conveyers; escalators. STEPHENS-ADAMSON MANUFACTURING CO. April 24, 1953, No. 11345/53. Class 78 (1). A transportation device consists of a series of aligned conveyers including a main highspeed conveyer spaced from an auxiliary low-speed conveyer and a speed-adjusting conveyer between them, the conveyers providing a continuous cab transporting surface for a series of independent passenger cabs resting upon and carried by the conveyers. As shown, passenger-carrying cabs 14 traverse a closed path consisting of two parallel co-extending high-speed belt conveyers 16 moving in opposite directions at 16 miles per hour and stations at each end of the conveyers for slowing down the cabs received from one conveyer to 1¢ miles per hour and bunching them, discharging the passengers, transferring them to the line of the other conveyer, where they are filled with fresh passengers travelling in the other direction, and accelerating the cabs up to 16 miles per hour for delivery to the other conveyer. Each station thus has an accelerating section 15 and a decelerating section 17, an unloading belt conveyer 18 travelling at 1¢ miles per hour, and a loading belt conveyer 13 travelling at 1¢ miles per hour. Associated moving platforms 19 and 12 moving at the same speeds as the conveyers 18 and 13 and provided with moving hand rails 21 allow passengers to enter and leave the moving cabs 14 on these conveyers without any apparent sense of motion, this effect being heightened by providing a moving endless band 37 between the conveyers 18 and 13 so that the respectively adjacent runs move in the same direction and at the same speed as the respective conveyers. Each accelerating or decelerating section consists of a driven rollerway in which each roller consists of six rubber-tyred wheels 23 mounted on a shaft 22, adjacent rollers being staggered, and the shafts 23 being driven at progressively increasing speeds from one end of the rollerway to the other, corresponding to peripheral speeds of the rollers varying from 1¢ to 16 miles per hour, by means of step-up belt gearing between successive rollers, the drive from the belt gearing to each roller including a fluid coupling 24 and a speed reducer 25. The cabs are maintained in alignment with the conveyers while on an accelerating or decellerating section by channels 33 on their undersides co-operating with rollers 35 positioned along the section.The cabs are transferred from an unloading conveyer 18 to a loading conveyer 13 by a rotary conveyer consisting of a curved roller table comprising rollers 26, and a wheel 28 around which is passed an endless driven cable 33 guided over rollers 31 arranged so that. the cable engages behind a ledge 34, Fig. 10, on each cab in turn to hold the cab against the wheel.and transfer it to the loading conveyer 13. A passenger who has entered the moving loading platform 12 and who changes his mind or cannot find a seat in a cab before reaching the far end of the platform can walk off the remote end of the loading platform. If he enters a cab too late and would be jammed in the cab entrance as it leaves the station a spring bumper 38 is actuated to stop the conveyer system.