Year: 1869

Over Wires.


"a railway without cuttings, en-
bankments, tunnels, viaduets or
bridges no matter how 'hilly the
country to be trayersedn-sueh is the
definition given by Herapath's Jour-
nal of an invention now in use in
Leieestershire, and a working model
of which may be seen in Gresham
street, L. G.. The wire tramway pro-
vides a simple and cheap substitute
for a line of rails, and is of great SER
vice where, from the scarcity or in
termittent character of the traffic, or
the engineering difficulties of the
ground to be got over, it is either not
expedient or impossible to go through
the expensive process of forming a
local railway. For the wire spans
over and evades obstacles in place of
burrOwing, under or leveling them,
and will perform its task as easily
along a rugged tract of country as on
the smOOthest road


The experiment being now prose-
euted with complete success between
some Leicestershire stone quaries and
q railway station three miles distant,
consists of an endless wire rope, sup
ported on a series of pullies carried
by substantial posts, which are ordi-
narily about One-hundred and fifty
feet apart, but the interval between
which may be greatly extended, as is
shown in one case where the span
from post to post is six hundred feet.
One of the ends of this rope passes
round a FOwler's elip-drum, worked
by a portable steam engine, and this
drives the rope at a speed Of six miles
an hour. Boxes are hung on the rope
at the loading end near the quarries
by a pendant which is ingeniOusly
arranged to preserve perfect equi-
librium, and at the same time to pass
without hindIance over the supports.
Each of these boxes carries one hund-
red weight of stone, and the delivery
is at the rate of two hundred boxes or
ten tuns per hour for the three mile
distance.


Already wire tramways on the Lei
eestershire model are in course of erec-
tiOn in France, Italy and Spain. Ne
gotiatiOns are on foot, too, between
the Turkish Government and the en-
gineers here, and it is not improbable
that this generation may see goods
carried by wire as common as MESA
ges. The tramway is, indeed, not
unlike an exceedingly stout electric
telegraph; and there is something
almost droll in the sight of regiment
of well laden trucks or boxes passing
graYely along at stated intervals, and
at q regular pace, much as if they
were at Rrial drill. The most i'm
pOrtant point in Mr.. HongsOn's in
vention is his method of passing the
points of support, which consists in
so eurving the frame of the truck or
box as to make the center of gravity
come under the rope. So admirably
is this managed that some of our
leading engineers have been discuss
ing quite recently the possibility of
constructing a stout wire tramway
between Dover and Calais, which
should be supported from a line OF
pillars sunk in mid-Ocean and along
which passengers could be conveyed.
The cost would be comparatively
small, and suspensory trains could,
it is argued, be dispatched across the
channel without difficulty or danger.


1t should be stated that where heavy
loads must necessarily be carried, a
pair of stationary supporting ropes,
with an endless running rope for the
motive power, are employed, and by
these means as many as n thousand
tuns per day can be easily conveyed.
The cost of erecting these tramways
in England, and of supplying motive
power and rolling stock, is from ESQ
a mile for carrying fifty tuns day
in boxes holding half a hundred
weight each, to e, 800 mile for one
of the double rope lines, to carry one
thousand tuns day, in boxes or
trucks holding six hundred weight
each. For all districts where there is
a traffic, but where it would not pay
to construct a railway, the wire tram
way is particularly applicable, and as
will be readily understood, wherever
there is standing room for posts, there
a line can be erected. A recent ap-
plication from traders in copper for
putting one up for them, which
should run through an African forest,
and over an African jungle down to
the coast, illustrates the varied cir
cumstances under which the new
system of transport may be applied.