AERIAL ROPEWAYS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19611, 6 May 1929, Page 7

AERIAL ROPEWAYS.

PRESENT-DAY UTILITY. ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR CALVERT. "One-would imagine that suck an old method of mechanical transport would, like most old systems, have been superseded by. some new system before now,'' said acting-Professor G. G. Calvert, in the course of his presidential address on "Aerial Ropeways," before the Canterbury College Engineering Society on Saturday evening. ''Such, however, is not the ease. Aerial ropeways have been vastly improved in matters of detail and motive power, and by the wonderful improvements effected in the manufacture of • steel wire ropes, and there are numberless cases to-day, and would be for many years to come, where the aerial ropeway 'will be the cheapest system to instal And the most economical to operate." The system had many obvious advantages, said Professor Calvert, and would save a great deal of expense incidental to railway construction, cuttings, embankments, tunnels, and bridges being eliminated, while the type of country and the gradients to be encountered, became a matter of no consequence. An aerial ropeway might be defined as a machine in which a fixed or moving cable suspended between supports, acted as a rail or support for a carnage provided with suitable grooved wheels which was able to be moved backwards and forwards on the cable. The carriage might or might not ae arranged to be fitted with gear to enable loads to be hoisted or lowered at any desired point along the line.

Advantages in Warfare. Professor Calvert described the utilitv of the system under modern conditions •£ warfare. In supplanting _ the manual rabour of distributing munitions, with its attendant risk of casualties, aerial ropeways provided a means Oinereasing efficiency in the final &™ge* of transport and in the middle of i»J-' an Aerial Eopeway Department was formed bv the French Warfare _ Department of the Ministry of Munitions. The object of the aerial ropeway was to facilitate transport of all kinds or munitions, and material over ground constantly under enemy fire, or areas fitted with shell-holes or swampy ground, or over all portions of the front where it was found impossible to use light railways or general service waggons. It wa_ used where it was impracticable to keep up with any rapid advance of troops bv other means, and it was used Between first and second-line trenches in bringing back wounded smoothly and rapidly. The Equipment.

In a general description of this equipment, the Professor said that special points of design to be considered -were simplicity of details, ease, asd quicksimplicity of details, ease, and quickmantliiig, ease of supply and replacement of broken parts and collapsibility, so that the passage of guns might not be blocked along its line of route. At this stage of the W.M-, the Ministry of Munitions gave the Kopeway Department, priority Al, the only other branches receiving priority Al being the Aeroplane, Tank, and Pill-box Departments. This gave these departments power to stop the manufacture of other munitions in order to get Quick supplies of any special parts required. The system <yV3* provided tn. units of half a; mile in length and the motive power was supplied by a four horse-power motor fed from a petrol; electric power set. Curves could be negotiated by the provision of vertical rollers. A.t the time of .the signing of the Armistice, about ISO miles of aerial ropeway was in use in France, Egypt, Salonika. ' The lecture was illustrated by lantern slides and working models, and was appreciated by a large attendance of students and practising' engineers.