Appliance for Enabling the Suspended Vehicles of Elevated Railways to Retain their Vertical Position on Inclines without Assuming an Oscillating Motion.
Year: 1898

page_text: Date of Application, 12th Apr., 1898-Accepted, 4th June,
1898
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Appliance for Enabling the Suspended Vehicles of Elevated Railways
to Retain their Vertical Position on Inclines without Assuming
an Oscillating Motion.
I, CHARLES DENTON ABEL, of Birkbeck Bank Chambers, Southampton Buildings,
in the County of London, Consulting Engineer and Chartered Patent Agent, do
hereby declare the nature of this invention (which has been communicated to me
from abroad by Eugen Langens Erben, of Werthstrasse 14, Cologne, in the Empire
of Germany), and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
described and ascertained in and by the following statement: -
This invention relates to elevated railways with vehicles suspended below the
rails. The present improvements have reference to an articulated suspension
device for the vehicles of such railways that have considerable inclines, such as for
mountain railways, by means of which device the floor and seats of the passenger
cars are always maintained horizontal and the sides vertical, even when the car
passes from a horizontal part of the line on to a steep upward or downward
incline, while at the same time the device effectually prevents the vehicles from
assuming an oscillating motion.
I will describe the said invention with reference to the accompanying drawing,
in which Figure 1 shews a side view of a horizontal part of the railway with a
train thereon. Figure 2 shews the same train on an incline; Figure 3 shews a
cross section on line a-b, Figure 1.
The several car sections A1 A2 A3 A4 are each separately suspended by means
of transverse swivel bolts G1 G2 G3 G4 from the longitudinal bearer T, which
is in its turn hung by means of suspension brackets B1 B2 from the wheels R 1 R2
running on rails on the railway girder F, so that the car bearer T and the railway
girder Falways remain parallel to each other. Thus while the rail girder Fis
horizontal at the horizontal part of the railway as at Figure 1 and is inclined at
the inclined parts of the railway as at Figure 2, the car compartments A always
hang in the same vertical position; in each compartment the centre of gravity
is always vertically below the pivot G.
In order to prevent the compartments A from oscillating they are all connected
together by the articulated connecting bar S, which is connected at one end to the
rod K of a piston working in a cylinder C. This cylinder is fixed to the loco-
motive L which has a rigid suspension frame. The cylinder C therefore has a
fixed position relatively to the bar S and piston rod K, so that according to the
variations in the inclination of the railway, the piston rod will be pushed to a
greater or less extent into the cylinder C. The cylinder is filled with liquid such
as glycerine and the piston has a passage through it of such restricted size as only
to admit of the motion of the piston in the cylinder at a speed slower than the
speed at which the compartments A tend to oscillate. By this arrangement,
although it admits of the compartments A varying their position relatively to the
bearer T, according to the varying inclination of the line, yet this change of
position takes place so slowly that no oscillatory motion can be produced.

page_text: The same action will also be produced if the cylinder be only filled with air,
and the piston is made to fit nearly air-tight therein.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is:-
Appliance for the articulated suspension of passenger cars from elevated rail-
ways with considerable inclines, consisting in connecting together the separate
pivotally suspended car compartments A by means of an articulated bar S, one
end of which is attached to a piston working in a cylinder C filled with fluid, so
that on the cars passing on to an incline they are able to retain their vertical
position but are prevented by the cylinder and piston from assuming an oscillating
motion, substantially as described.