MENTS IN TRAVELLING TRAMWAYS
Year: 1876

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Jonathan Aldous Mays at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 9th August 1876.
JONATHAN ALDOUS MAYS, of 221, Gresham House, London, E.C.
MENTS IN TRAVELLING TRAMWAYS."
"
'IMPROVE-
This Invention has for its object facilitating the progress of engines, wheeled
vehicles, and apparatus intended to run or to be moved apart from and without the
use of fixed railways or tramways, and is intended to be applied to road or traction
engines, agricultural or other portable engines, carriages, carts, wagons, velocipedes,
and such like vehicles, with traction or with running wheels, and to other
apparatus or machinery in which the use of traction or of running wheels not
working upon a fixed rail or tramway is employed.
The Invention consists in furnishing running or traction wheels with jimproved
endless travelling or portable tramways and guides to the same, and in certain
arrangements of or combinations of the running or traction wheels to be used in or
with a travelling tramway.
My improved travelling tramway is made up of a number of separate trams
made of wood or metal or other suitable material hinged upon or jointed to each
other by means of hooks, hinges, springs, or other suitable connections or fastenings,
so that they form a continuous belt or chain within and upon which the traction
or running wheel or wheels travel.
According to part of my Invention to each tram and preferably in or under the
middle of the same is fixed a roller or wheel, or rollers or wheels working in a
direction lateral to that of the running wheels, this is for the purpose of facilitating
the lateral motion of the tramway, and (where rollers or wheels in a single line are
employed) permitting of the lateral rocking or canting of the tramway, and thus
enabling its upper or running surface to retain a line or level parallel to that of the
periphery of the running or traction wheels.
In some cases the trams are curved or made somewhat semicircular in section, or
to their under sides are attached blocks of wood or of metal, or of wood shod with
metal, such blocks being curved or somewhat semicircular in section, and the trams
so made admit of a similar rocking or canting motion of the tramway.
In other cases the under sides of the trams are fitted with blocks of or are
connected with a continious belt or band of caoutchouc, or such like substance or
material which permits of compression and is capable of reaction, and while this
Price 4d1

page_text: also admits of a rocking or canting motion of the tramway, it assists materially in
providing a uniformly level surface of tramway for the running or traction wheels
inasmuch as the caoutchouc partly takes up or accommodates itself to inequalities
in the surface of the road.
The several trains of the travelling tramway thus far described would be hori-
zontally bent or deflected upwards and downwards upon or towards each other at
their ends, as the running or the traction wheels which the tramway is intended to
surround or circumflex would come upon the ends of each tram in the course of its
onward progress. It is desirable therefore while maintaining the flexible character
of the tramway to secure a tolerably rigid horizontal surface upon which the
running or traction wheel may travel. This I effect by arranging plates or bars of
wood or metal, which I will call bridges or bridge pieces, to lay across the upper
surfaces of the trams at the points where the latter are hinged or jointed together,
in such a way that they form bridges taking their bearings upon about half the
length of each of the trams, over the ends or joints of which they are placed.
When two of the trams are in a horizontal position some of the bridges pertaining
to such trams will also be in a horizontal position, and the bridges may be so made
that the sides of the same are to be parellel with grooves in the trams, so that the
ends of the same may slide or be wheeled within such grooves, or the bridges and
trams may be so made that the ends of the bridges may pass through holes in the
trams when the latter are folded or bent upon or towards each other, and the
bridges and trams are also to be so made that when some or one of each are in a
horizontal position the top or tops of some or one of the trams will be level with
the upper surfaces of some or one of the bridges. In this way the pressure of the
running or traction wheel will either be borne by a single tram at a point very near
the middle of its length, or by a bridge having its bearings upon a large part of the
surfaces of two of the trams, it will thus be impossible to deffect or fold or bend the
trams upon or towards each other at the points of junction upon which the
running or traction wheel may be travelling.
These bridges are to be connected with the several trams by means of springs,
hinges, or other suitable fastenings, and as the trams travel round with the running
or traction wheels, and form angles with each other as they are severally lifted
up or laid down by the onward motion of the wheel or wheels, centres of the
bridges will riso away from or fall towards the angles made by the several trams as
they fold or bend upon or towards each other.
Bridge pieces may also be arranged in separate parts hinged or fastened to the
trains, and sliding by or teslescoping into or upon each other when the trams fold
or bend upon each other.
I also secure a fairly rigid horizontal surface of tramway with or without the use
of the bridges I have referred to by arranging that more than one running or traction
whools, as the case may be, shall be employed in taking a bearing upon or resting
upon the tram or trams actually upon the ground. This I effect by providing
running or traction wheels, as the case may be, to run behind or partly behind each
other, and so near to each other that a single tram will reach or nearly reach from
the tread or bearing surface of one wheel to the tread or bearing surface of another
wheel. The tendency of one running or traction wheel to deflect or fold or bend
the trams upon or towards each other at the points of junction will then be counter-
acted by another or other running or traction wheel or wheels standing at or on the
tram or trams at the other end or ends of the same, and resisting the binding or
folding upward of the tram, which would otherwise result from the deflecting or
folding or bending downward of the first now mentioned end or ends of the tram
or trams upon each other.
The bending or folding upon or towards each other of the ends of the trams at the
points of junction when the traction or running wheels bear upon such points, may
also be prevented by arranging hinged plates or bars of wood or metal upon the
trams in such a way that such hinged pieces shall be capable of hinging or folding
upon each other at right angles to or at nearly right angles to, but in a contrary

page_text: direction to the hingeing or folding of the trams upon each other, and to be con-
trolled by suitable stops from bending or folding in the direction in which the trams
fold or bend. When some or one of the trams are in a horizontal position, some or
one of these hinged bridges as they may be called will be in a similar position, and
will form rigid bridges between some or one of the trams on the ground.
In order to secure that the travelling tramway shall always run with truth in
the direction of the running or traction wheel or wheels to which it is applied, I
provide guide bars or plates or wheels fixed to the carriage at suitable angles to the
axes of the running or traction wheel or wheels, as the case may be, or fix other
"guido" wheels or rollers to the tramway itself in such a way that any tendency
of the tramway to move in a lateral direction independent of the running wheel is
checked by the sides of the same, or the guide wheels upon the same being then
brought into contact with the sides of such "guide" bars, plates or wheels, or
rollers, now referred to as being fixed to the carriage.
The "guide bars, plates, or wheels fixed to the carriage may be so made that
the under sides of or parts of the same or some of them may partly project under
part or parts of the under surfaces of the trams, and serve to prevent the trams
from dropping away from the surface of the running or traction wheel in the event
of the latter being lifted from the ground.