IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR USE IN LOADING VESSELS WITH COAL
Year: 1883

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to George Taylor of Penarth in the County of Glamorgan
for an Invention of IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR USE IN LOADING
VESSELS WITH COAL
(Void by reason of the Patentee having neglected to file a Specification in
pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent.)
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said George Taylor at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th March 1883.
GEORGE TAYLOR of Penarth in the County of Glamorgan
APPARATUS FOR USE IN LOADING VESSELS WITH COAL."
IMPROVEMENTS IN
In shipping coal by means of a staith, an inclined shoot is usually employed for
conveying the coal from the railway waggons to the vessel and in order to obtain
sufficient inclination to make the coal run down the shoot, it becomes necessary,
when the waggons enter the staith at a low level, to hoist them up to a considerable
elevation. In shipping coal from a shoot, the coal first shipped at each hatchway
is frequently lowered in skips or boxes to form a conical heap for the remainder of
the coal to fall on, the consequence of which is that the large lumps roll down this
heap to different parts of the hold and are thereby broken to a great extent whilst
the small coal falls into the insterstices between the lumps of the heap, and thus
collects to a great extent in one place instead of being uniformly distributed
throughout the cargo. By avoiding this local excess of small coal and preventing
the breakage, the condition and marketable value of the whole cargo would be
improved.
This Invention has for its object to reduce the cost and difficulty of conveying
the coal from the staith to the hatchway, of lowering it into the hold, and of
trimming the cargo or distributing it in the various parts of the hold and to avoid
or reduce the breakage of the coal in these various operations, and the Invention
comprises the employment of machinery for carrying out these operations.
The Invention relates first to apparatus for conveying the coal from the staith

page_text: to the hatchway in a horizontal or nearly horizontal direction whereby to avoid
the necessity of raising the waggons to a great height in the staith.
This apparatus consists preferably of a conveyor composed of a series of carrying
plates or platform sliding in outgoing and return guides or ways extending between
the staith and the hatchway, these plates being adapted to be pushed or pulled
along their guides in the form of a chain or series, this motion being produced by
power and communicated by the one to the other, and the plates being adapted to
separate and pass from the outgoing to the return grooves on arriving at the point
of discharge over the hatchway, the load on each plate being discharged therefrom
by the act of the plate returning beneath the advancing train of loaded plates.
The Invention relates 2nds to apparatus for lowering the coal. This apparatus
comprises platforms arranged in series at short distances above one another in
vertical guides within a tube or shaft extending through and beneath the hatchway,
and of lowering mechanism whereby these platforms are supported at the proper
intervals and are lowered through short distances within their guides. The
lowering mechanism may consist of two sets of vertical rods provided with stops
or catches at proper intervals the said rods having reciprocating motion the one
set moving in the opposite direction to the other set, and the rods also having a partial
rotary motion each on its own axis at the two ends of its course whereby each
platform is supported and lowered a certain distance by the one series of rods and
is then transferred to the other series to be lowered a second stage and is then
again transferred back to the first series for lowering a third stage and so on, the
rods being geared together for simultaneous action and the platforms all descending
a stage simultaneously or in series. Instead of these rods vertical endless bands
with supporting lugs for the platforms may be used the platforms being supported
between pairs of such bands and the power derived from the weight of the coal
may be used for actuating the distributing machinery hereafter described. This
apparatus is similar to that first described for conveying the coal from the staith
to the hatchway except that the ways on which these carriers run are movable
about a centre beneath the hatchway so as to radiate therefrom to different parts
of the hold.