US548504A - Fornia - Google Patents

Description

2 Sheets-Sheet 1. G. E. BEACH & M. J. KERN. GOMBINED ELECTRIC! AND CABLE RAILWAY.

(No Model.)

No. 548,504. Patented Oct. 22, 1895.

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(No Model.) 2 SheetsSheet 2- C. E. BEACH & M. J. KERN. COMBINED ELECTRIC AND CABLE RAILWAY.

No. 548,504. Patented-Oct. 22, 1895.

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' GARDNER E. BEACH AND MORRIS J. KERN, OF SAN FRANCISCO, GALI- FORNIA.

COMBINED ELECTRIC AND CABLE RAILWAY.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 548,504, dated October 22, 1895.

Application filed August 1, 1892, serial No. 441,887. (No model.)

To aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, GARDNER E. BEACH and MORRIS J. KERN, citizens of the United States, residing at San Francisco, in the county of San Francisco and State of California, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in a Combined Electric and Cable Railway; and we do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of said invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it most nearly appertains to make, use, and practice the same.

Our invention has relation to what we term an improved combined electrical and cable railway system, which consists in the arrangement of parts and details of construction, as will be hereinafter more fully set forth in the drawings, and described and pointed out in the specification.

The greatest difficulty to be overcome in electrical railway systems is that of enabling the cars to be operated over steep grades is an economical manner as when traversing a level road.

Heretofore it has been found necessary to equip each car with two motors of, say, twentyfive horse-power, each one of which serves to give sufficient power to propel the car upon a level, while both motors are necessary to be brought into use when it is required to carry the car up steep inclines. Hence it is that all electrical roads are built over such ground as will permit the least inclination to the roadbed, so as to dispense with necessity of equipping the cars, if possible, with more than a single motor, which, being of great expense, necessarily must serve to reduce cost of building and running the railway.

The object of our invention is to work in conjunction with the electrical road an in dependent cable system, which cable shall be located at such portion of the electrical road where the cars are compelled to traverse steep inclines, and which shall use as its motive power a portion of the electrical current from the main line and in this manner propel the cars over roads built with steepest of grades without employment or use of other motor in connection with the car than is required to force movement of cars upon a level. In this manner we can propel the cars up such inclines as are traveled by cable railways, which cannot be accomplished by electric roads per se.

Referring to the drawings forming a part of this specification, wherein similar letters of reference are used to denote corresponding parts throughout the entire specification and several views, Figure 1 is a side elevation showing our cable system as applied to an electrical railway; Fig. 2, an end elevation of cable-grip; Fig. 3, a side elevation thereof; Fig. 4, a detail view showing mechanism for raising and lowering cable-grip; and Fig. 5 is a diagrammatic view.

In Fig. l we have shown application of our system to a steep hill, and therein the letter A is used to indicate the line-Wire of an ordinary electric railway. In carrying out our invention we make use of an endless cable B, which is located within any suitable conduit, as 0, between the rails D D, as fully shown. This cable passes around drums E E, located, when a double track is used, between inner rails of the road, and said drums, in such case, are of sufficient diameter to cause said cable to run in conduit provided between rails of each track. A These drums, it will be observed, rotate in a horizontal plane corresponding with road-bed. Consequently a similar travel is imparted to endless cable.

It would involve no departure from our invention, however, to arrange the end pulleys vertically and thereby apply the device to a single-track road.

One of the operating-drums we locate at each end of hill, as shown in Fig. 1. Consequently the cable working therearound travels completely over the hill. Within cableconduit we locate a series of depression-pulleys a, as is usual in all cable roads, and upon the cable proper we secure a series of knobs or bosses b, which we locate a given distance apart say, from three to four feet. periphery of operatingdrums is out sockets, (not shown,) into which fit knobs or bosses b as the cable rotates. Our cable system is laid along the roadway wherever a hill or steep incline occurs, and each cable only extends such Within' a length as is necessary to cross the hill or incline. Instead of propelling or operating the cable through the medium of power-house, as is customary, we propose to extract or take from the line-current of the electrical road sufficient power for this purpose, and in order to accomplish this we secure below the roadbed motor F, which is connected to line-wire by means of branch supply-wire F, which serves to furnish current necessary to operate motor and cable, as will be hereinafter more fully set forth. Inasmuch as cable-operating drums are secured upon shafts c c, it is obvious, after proper electrical connection is made, that motor causes rotation of said shaft and drum secured thereto, and hence imparts motion to the cable.

Intermediate the tracks we lay or run a supplemental trolley-wire H, which is normally inactive. This wire runs from motor F, as shown, the entire length of the hill or incline, and is supported by supports d, after which it branches over, in case of a double-track railway, to opposite track, and is supported by poles d. This forms a normally-open circuit, which is closed or completed by the operator of the car when hill is reached. The ends 1 2 of wire H are separated from ends 3 4; of trolley or line wire by glass insulators. Consequently current from line-wire does not pass to supplemental trolley-wire unless same is switched therefrom when open trolley-wire circuit is closed.

In building, an electric road wherein our cable system is employed the main line when a hill is reached is shunted therearound-that is, run from pole 5 to 6-after which it is run as a main-line wire. It will thus be seen that the main-line wire is shunted entirely around the hill to one side of the road. By this means the current of main trolley-line is shunted to pole-line running to end of cable system and is then switched back to main trolley-wire.

In place of running the line-wire over the entire length of the hill we prefer to employ in lieu thereof our cable system, which we lay in suitable conduits the entire length of said hill-that is to say, up one side and down the other-and by the use of said cable convey the cars over the hill.

At each end of the cable system we provide cable-traps K K, which are for the purpose of permitting cable-grip to be lowered within conduit in order to catch or pick up the cable.

The grip may be of any suitable kind; but we prefer to use one which shall merely encircle the cable Without clamping same.

Our grip consists of two plates L L, the latter of which extends somewhat above plate L and has its edge cutin form of a rack-plate L while to its lowerends are pivoted clamping-jaws e e. The lower end of plate L surrounds plate L, which works through openingf, formed therethrough,the lowerend walls of which opening are outwardly flared, as

shown at f',in order to form aseat forc1amp jaws. These jaws are connected to plate L by means of links 9 g, as shown in Fig. 2.

The grip may be secured to either end of car M, or to both,and is supported therein by means of supporting-clamp M, through which it works. This grip is raised and lowered by means of gear-wheel N, the teeth of which intermesh with teeth of plate L. This grip, however, will form the subject-matter of a separate application, and no claim thereto is made herein.

At any suitable portion of the car is 1ocated switch N, which when lowered, as shown in Fig. 1, contacts with one of the rails and serves to close open circuit of supple-' mental trolley-wire in order to operate cable. As the car reaches a hill or incline, the operator of the car opens cable-trap at the end of the system and drops the cable-grip so as to clamp the cable, switch N contacting with rail, and trolley P is then switched to supplemental trolley-wire, which completes the circuit and causes motor to operate cable. As endless cable travels, one of the knobs or bosses located thereon contacts with cable grip and forces the car up the incline. As the car descends the opposite incline, provided the hill is so shaped, the same is prevented from going at a greater speed than the cable, by reason of the fact that cable-grip contacts with boss in advance thereof and is thus held back. Consequently liability of car getting from under control of operator is obviated, an accident which often happens when brakes are depended on to control velocity of the car. When opposite end of cable system is reached, cable-trap at that point is raised and grip removed from conduit. The trolley is then shifted to main trolleywire and car proceeds in a manner similar to the usual electric road.

By the use of our cable system we effectually overcome necessity of employing in the car other motor than is ordinarily required to run the car upon a level road, and by this system we permit the use of electric roads in all places where cable roads may run, which cannot be accomplished by the ordinary system of electric roads.

It will also be observed that the car when traveling down a hill is propelled at a speed uniform with the cable, which is due to the knobs or bosses secured thereon.

Having thus described our invention, what we claim as new, and desire to secure protection in by Letters Patent of the United States,

1. In an electric tramway system, the combination with a haulage cable adapted and arranged to serve as an auxiliary power for the propulsion of cars and actuated by an electric motor, of means for driving such lastnamed motor by electricity derived from the same source as the supply for the car motor.

2. An electric railway having a short cable section, a supplemental conductor co-extensive with said cable section, and a motor for operating the cable section in series with said supplemental conductor and driven from the main line circuit when said circuit is closed through the supplemental conductor by the entrance of a car on the cable section.

In testimony whereof we affix our signatures in presence of two Witnesses.

GARDNER, E. BEACH. MORRIS J. KERN. Witnesses:

N. A; ACKER, LEE D. CRAIG.

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