IMPROVEMENTS IN REVOLVING OR ENDLESS TRAVELLING RAILWAYS
Year: 1880

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Jonathan Aldous Mays at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 2nd July 1880.
JONATHAN ALDOUS MAYS, of 223, Gresham House, Old Broad Street, in the City
of London. "IMPROVEMENTS IN REVOLVING OR ENDLESS TRAVELLING RAILWAYS."
The objects of this Invention are to effect certain improvements in the construc-
tion and working of the portable railways for which I obtained Letters Patent
dated the 16th day of October 1878, No. 4109. In the Specification of which
Patent I have described the several parts of such railways as encircling the wheels
of vehicles and revolving or rolling with the same in such a way as to afford a
continuous railway for supporting such wheels and the vehicles to which they are
applied.
For the purpose of diminishing the noise which arises when the rail at the rear
of the wheel strikes against the rear face or periphery of the wheel on being lifted
from a horizontal to a vertical position, I propose that the blow shall be taken by
suitably constructed spring or springs, or buffers, placed either upon the wheel
itself or upon the rails or other parts of the revolving railway, or upon some part
of the vehicle.
With the view to diminishing the friction arising from any movement between the
surfaces or parts of the revolving railway which bear upon the wheel, when such
parts are being borne upon and carried forward by the motion of the wheel for the
purpose of being laid down in front thereof, I propose to fix in suitable places
upon such wheel a number of small wheels or pinions mounted in spring, or
flexible bases for the purpose of sustaining, bearing, and carrying the parts of the
revolving railway in such circumstances. The spring bases or flexible axes of
such pinions are to be strong enough to sustain the weight and strain of the parts
of the revolving railway, so as to prevent the surface of the same from bearing upon
the upper surface or parts of the periphery of the wheel, as at present and yet be
weak enough to be readily compressed, so as to permit of the lower part of the
periphery of the wheel resting directly upon the rail as concerned in carrying the
same. These carrying pinions with spring bases or axes may also serve to take
the blow and diminish the noise which occurs from the rising rail striking against
the periphery of the wheel, as referred to in the preceding paragraph.
In the Specification of the Patent already referred to, describe india rubber
bushes for the pivots or hinge pins used for joining or connecting the rails to the

page_text: saddles of the rolling railway. I now propose to form such bushes (and also if
need be, the axes of the carrying pinions referred to in the last preceding
paragraph), with inner linings of wood, metal, paper-mache, vulcanized fibre,
leather, or such like suitable substances, so as to obtain a comparatively hard axis
for the rotary motion of the hinge pin or pivot, combined with a yielding base or
socket for the same.
In forming the ball and socket joint between the feet or sleepers and the saddles
of my revolving railway, I propose to use a gimball action and connection of the
parts combined, with a double ball and socket arrangement, so as to obtain freedom
of movement coupled with strength and solidity of parts. This I effect by causing
a ball or a socket, as the case may be, forming part of or attached to the under-
side of the saddle, to fit into a seperate or intermediate socket or ball, as the case
may be, independant of the foot or sleeper forming another part of my rolling
railway in such a way that such combined ball and socket has an axis in only one
direction; but such independant ball or socket is to be made to fit into or upon
another ball or socket attached to or forming part of the foot or sleeper, and to
have another axis upon the same plan as the first axis, but at right angles thereto.
Neither of the sockets need extend beyond the middle line of the ball to which it
is fitted, and the axis and connection may be formed in the one case by a bolt
passing through the wall and rivetted into the intermediary cup or socket, and in
the other by trunnions forming part of such intermediary cup or socket, and
working into sockets which may form part of or be attached to the foot.
The axes of this ball and socket like connection may be made to have sufficient
vertical play to permit of the weight of the load being taken exclusively by the
balls and sockets without putting-any-strain-upon the bolt or the trunnions.
Instead of using a continuous flexible sheet of metal or other suitable material-
for forming the flexible "slipper" to be attached to the feet for the purpose of
preventing the latter from adhering to clayey surfaces, I propose to attach strips
of flexible metal or such like suitable material loosely to the undersides of the fect,
and to fasten to such strips pieces of wood or metal, or wood and metal combined,
so as to form a flexible bottoin for the feet or sleepors of the revolving railway.