IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS FOR TRAM- CAR OR VEHICULAR TRAFFIC, AND THE MEANS EMPLOYED FOR MAINTAINING THE SAME IN A STATE WHICH WILL PREVENT HORSES SLIPPING THEREON.
Year: 1878

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Charles Mansfield Lloyd at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 31st December 1878.
CHARLES MANSFIELD LLOYD, of Lloyd & Company's Wharf, Nine Elms, in the
County of Surrey. "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS FOR TRAM-
CAR OR VEHICULAR TRAFFIC, AND THE MEANS EMPLOYED FOR MAINTAINING THE
SAME IN A STATE WHICH WILL PREVENT HORSES SLIPPING THEREON.
"
The primary object of this Invention is the construction of a tramway on public
roads or highways which will possess great solidity and stability, and offer no
obstruction to or wrenching of the wheels of ordinary vehicles passing over and
coming into contact with the metals or rails of such tramway.
The roadway upon which it is intended to construct the line of rail or rails is
first excavated to a width of six or seven feet, and to such a depth as the character
of the ground may render desirable. On this excavation a bed of concrete is laid
of a depth which will carry a sleeper 9 inches deep by 3 inches wide. When the
sleepers and concrete are set I secure thereto by means of dogs or clamps a
reversible metal rail of about one and a half inches deep by three inches wide, the
upper surface of which is flush with the surface of the roadway.
The said rail or rails are provided on two of their sides, top and bottom, with
grooves in which the flanges of the wheels of the tram-car runs; these said grooves
are of a size and shape which will make it impossible for the wheel of an ordinary
vehicle to enter or catch in them.
The wood sleeper upon which the rails are secured is grooved along both its sides
with a key way, and a space is left between its key grooved surfaces and the
adjacent roadway; into the spaces and key-ways so formed Portland cement
'grout" is run, so as to fill the same with a solid key, thereby rendering the
slightest motion of the sleeper and rail, or the percolation or absorption of water
absolutely impossible.
"
The road immediately outside the sleepers and the path between the rails
I construct by preference of pitch pine blocks, in manner similar to the pavement
described in the Specification of a Patent granted to me on the 27 November

page_text: 1878, No. 4820; by this novel construction of pavement the sleepers and roadway
together with the concrete foundation or substratum form one rigid solid mass as
hard as stone, and impenetrable to water.
Secondly. The Invention relates to a novel form of sand distributer, which will
evenly and uniformly lay or spread the sand over the surface of the road at
intervals of time, this improved distributer consists of a sand box with a sloping
bottom supported on a carriage, the wheels of which when travelling give motion
to a revolving brush situated at a bottom opening or orifice formed in the box for
the exit of the sand, which as the sand is received by the brush it becomes expelled
and evenly distributed over the surface of the roadway, the repeated covering of
sand thus given causes the said sand to mingle with and enter the close fibrous
texture of which the pitch pine blocks are composed, and thus give them a hard
solid rough surface, which enables them to present a constant and sure foothold free
from slipperyness.