WIRE TRAMWAYS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 295, 17 December 1869, Page 2

WIRE TRAMWAYS.

'A railway without cuttings, embankments, tunnels, viaducts, or bridges, no matter how hilly the country to be traversed "—such is the definition given by Herapath's Journal of an invention now in use in Leicestershire, and a working model of which may be seen in Gresham-street, E.C. The Wire Tramway provides a simple and cheap substitute for a line of rails, and is of great service where, from the scarcity or intermittent character of the trafiic, 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 levelling them, and will perform its task as easily along a rugged tract of country as on the smoothest road. The experiment being now prosecuted with complete success between some Leicestershire stone quarries and a'railway station three miles distant, consists of an endless wire rope, supported on a series of. pulleys, carried by substantial posts, which are ordinarily about 150 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 600 feet. One of the ends of this rope passes round a Fowler's clip-drum, worked ' by; a portable steam-engine, and this drives the rope at a speed of six "miles an Jhoor. Boxes are hung on the ; rope at the loading : end near the quarries, by a pendant, whi-ih is :-,' ingeniously arranged to preserve a; equilibrium, and at the same time to pass. without hindrance over the -supports. Each of these: boxes carries one hundredweight ;of stone,, and the delivery is at the rate, of 200. boxes, or. 10 tons. per hour for the threermile distance. „:..;:.;;. J ■ Already wire train ways lon. the JEeicestershire model are in .cimrse ; ; erectibn.ih JFrarice, Italy,/ ; and.Spain;; . Negdciatibhjsarelbn, foot -too bietween the Turkish Go vemment;and^h6: engineers here, - iaay^ee^goods'vcam :J Zfffff'.Pff-^tifff^fffry--'' ■] j fff yf"

as messages. . The tramway is, indeed, not unlike an exceedingly stout electric telegraph ; and there is something almost droll in the sight of a regiment of well.laden trucks or, boxes pas>ing gravely along it at stated intervals" and at a regular pace, much as if they were at aerial drill. The most important point in Mr. Hodgson's invention is his method of. passing the points of support, which consists in so curving the fr.une of the truck or box as to make the centre of gravity come under the rope. So admirably is this managed that some of our leading engineers have been discussing quite recently the possibility of constructing a stout wire tramway between Dover and Calais, which should be supported from aline 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 despatched across the Channel without difficulty or danger. It should be stated that where heavy loads v ust necessarily be carried, a pair of stationary supporting ropes, with an endless running rope for the motive power, are employed, and that by these means as many as a thousand tons per day can be easily conveyed. The cost of erecting these tramways in England, and of supplying . motive power and rolling stock, is from .£250 a mile for carrying 50 tons a day, in boxes holding half a hundredweight each to £1500 a mile for one of the double rope lines to carry 1000 tons a day, in boxes or trucks holding six hundredweight each. For all districts where there is traffic, but where it would not pay to construct a railway, the wire tramway is particularly applicaole, and as will be readily understood, whereever there is standing-room for posts, there a line can be erected. A recent application from traders in copper for putting one up for them, wliich should run through an African forest, and over an African -jungle down to the coast illustrates the varied circumstances under which the new system' of transport may be applied.