IMPROVEMENTS IN 'HURRYS' OR APPARATUS FOR SHIPPING COAL AND FOR SIMILAR PURPOSES
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Andrew Muirhead Stewart at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 27th December 1879.
ANDREW MUIRHEAD STEWART, of Irvine, in the County of Ayr, North Britain.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN 'HURRYS' OR APPARATUS FOR SHIPPING COAL AND FOR SIMILAR
PURPOSES."
The said Invention relates to improvements in "hurrys" or apparatus for raising
and tipping coal trucks, for discharging their contents into vessels, and for similar
purposes. The apparatus constructed according to the said Invention, consists of a
framework erected at the edge of the wharf, or quay, or other place, alongside which
vessels can lie for receiving their cargo. At either side of this framework are
vertical screws, upon which run nuts, or internally screwed bosses, upon a tipping
platform, so that as these screws are turned in one or other direction, the platform
is raised (a distance according to the state of the tide) or lowered in the aforesaid
framework. The said tipping platform when in its lowest position constitutes a
continuation of the railway or turntable, from which the trucks are drawn on to
the said platform by means of a hauling drum attached to the framework. A screw
attached to the back of the platform works in a nut below, it and is so geared with
the driving shaft of the apparatus that it receives a more rapid rotation than do
the side screws so that when the platform has been elevated to the desired extent
upon the side screws the back screw has risen so much higher that the platform and
the truck thereon are tipped when the door catch of the truck is removed and the
contents run out and down a shoot which is adjustable to a higher or lower position
upon the framework to allow of its being raised to the height which the state of
the tide may require. The movements of the screws, and of the hauling drum, and
of the pulleys for raising and lowering the shoot are obtained by gearing from a
shaft by an engine of the requisite power, the said gearing being arranged with
clutches, or their equivalents, for allowing the hauling drum, the shoot, and the side
and tipping screws to be worked independently. When the truck is empty, the
engine is reversed and the platform returns to its lowest position, and, owing to the
back screw running faster than the side screws, the said platform is then level and
the truck may be run off therefrom by a rope or chain on a drum situated to the
rear of the drum which effects the hauling of the trucks on to the platform, or the
side screws may be stopped in their revolution before the platform has reached its

page_text: lowest position, when the back screw will give such an inclination to the platform
that the empty truck on the removal of the stops from the rails will run off the
platform.
When the apparatus is not employed in shipping coal the engine and drum can
be used for discharging ballast from vessels into punts by passing the rope or chain
from the drum over a pulley on the edge of the wharf or quay, to the ship's gin
hanging above the hatch, or a portable jib may be run out diagonally from the side
of the famework of the apparatus.
By adjusting the shoot so that the front is higher than the back ballast or other
matter may be run from a vessel into trucks upon the platform of the apparatus.