IMPROVE- MENTS IN AERIAL LOCOMOTION
Year: 1867

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Robert Lakin at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 24th July 1867.
I, ROBERT LAKIN, of Chorlton-upon-Medlock, in the City of Manchester,
Machinist, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN AERIAL LOCOMOTION," to be as follows:-
The object of this Invention is to convey passengers or goods in suspended
vehicles attached to wire or other ropes supported upon strong elevated
columns of masonry and ironwork combined; these columns must be
sufficiently high to allow the vehicles to pass over the tops of houses or other
buildings instead of running on the ordinary roads or streets. Two sets of
ropes will be required, one set to bear the weight of the carriage and
passengers and also to be the medium of conducting the power for moving
them, and the other set will also be connected to the vehicle to be in readiness
to prevent the carriage and passengers falling should the first-named ropes
break, thus no accident or disaster can possibly arise. The termini or end
columns must contain a steam engine or other power for the purpose of
giving motion to the ropes and vehicles, and the reserve ropes must have
balance weights to keep them at their proper tension. The middle or
intermediate columns must be built at suitable distances from each other for
supporting carrier pulleys on which the ropes rest, to diminish the strain

page_text: on them arising from their own weight as well as that of the carriage; they
must be so constructed as to present no impediment to the free passage of the
vehicles, and also to be used as stations for the purpose of allowing passengers
to get in and out. The vehicles are attached to endless ropes and move in
either direction according to the action of the steam engine, and the carrier
pulleys in the intermediate columns may be fixed to moveable slides. These
slides will yield to the weight of the carriages as they approach and allow
the ropes to descend to the level due to the weight and tension of the ropes.
After the vehicles have passed the ropes and pulleys are again raised by means
of balance weights to their former position. When a column or tower is
used for a station, the passengers are or may be raised to the level of the
carriages or lowered to the level of the streets by means of a hoist worked by
the same steam engine which drives the vehicles.
Another mode of producing aerial locomotion can be effected by having
wire ropes extending from column to column acting as rails on a railway, and
by attaching suitable wheels to the carriages, which wheels rest upon the
ropes, then by gradually raising the ropes an inclined plane is produced, down
which the vehicles travel. The distance travelled would depend on the
amount of elevation given to the ropes in proportion to their length, and the
steam engine in this case would be used to raise and depress the ropes instead
of drawing the carriages by means of a rope attached to them as already
described.
In this arrangement the ropes would require alternately raising and
lowering so that the carriages would advance in one case and recede in the
other.