US722654A - Trackless trolley. - Google Patents

Description

PATENTED MAR. 10, 1903.

A. B. UPHAM. TRAGKLESS TROLLEY.

APPLICATION FILED APR. 25, 1901. I

3 SHEETS-SHEET 1.

N0 MODEL.

'PATENTED MAR. 10,1 903.

A. UPHAM. TRAGKLESS TROLLEY'. APPLICATION rILnn APB. 2.51901.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ARTEMAS B. UPHAM, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR OF ONE- HALF TO FRED G. TILTON, OF LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS.

TRACKLESS TROLLEY.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 722,654, dated March 10, 1903.

Application filed April 25, 1901.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ARTEMAS B. UPHAM, a citizen of the United States, residing at the city of Boston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Trackless Trolleys, of which the followingis a full, clear, and exact description.

The object of this invention is the construction of means by which a conveyance unprovided with confining track-rails can receive a motor-energizing current of electricity from juring people and property in the streets below, but it cannot be readily applied to or removed from the Wires nor conveniently switched from one line to another.

My invention for this purpose consists, essentially, in providing the conveyance with. horizontal laterally pressed trolley wheels yieldingly held in engagement with a pair of overhead positive and negative conductors and resiliently supported by the conveyance at the normal height of such conductors, the resilient support being constructed to permit the conveyance to freely wander to considerable distances at either side of the conductors.

Referring to the drawings forming part of this specification, Figure 1 is a perspective view of a conveyance constructed to be guided along any part of a roadway and provided with my trackless trolley. Fig. 2 is a plan View showing the trolley-wheels in engagement with a pair of trolley-wires; and Fig. 3 is an elevation of the same, the said wires being shown in cross-section. Fig. 4 is a side elevation of my trolley, showing a means whereby the trolley-wheels can be drawn to- Serial No. 67,447. (No model.)

gether. Fig. 5 is an under view of the upper part of the trolley, showing the same thing.

As illustrated in Fig. 1, the conveyance represented is of the open-car form (designated by the reference-numeral 30) and running upon rubber-tired automobile-wheels 31 32, of which 31 are the driving-wheels and 32 the steering-wheels controlled by the steering-lever 33. Swiveled upon the roof of this conveyance is a trolley-pole 3, having its upper end normally maintained at substantially the height of the trolley-wires 2 by a tensionspring 6. Said spring and the swiveled bearings 4 may be of the usual type employed in electric traction, with the exception that the spring should loo-much weaker in order to give the trolley no more of an upward pres sure than is required to counterbalance the pole and trolley, and thereby resiliently support the same at about the level of the trolleywires. Swiveled upon the upperend of the pole 3 is an arrangement usually termed a lazytongs, carrying at its opposite extremities the horizontal trolley-wheels 1, pressed laterally into engagement with the trolley-wires 2 by means of the springs 16. Said lazytongs 15 should be composed of some nonconducting material or in some other manner made incapable of transmitting current from the positive to the negative conductor 2.

The bearings 10 of each trolley-wheel are provided with a rigid arm or extension 11, descending flush with the wheel-flange, as shown in Fig. 3, while from the extremities thereof depend the cords or ropes 12 into reach of the occupants of the conveyance.

From each bearing 10 to a suitable standard 21 at the side of the swiveled bearings 4 extends a wire or other link for the purpose of keeping the lazy-tongs in constant parallelism with the transverse line of the conveyance. I also prefer to use said wires 20 as conduc tors for taking the current from and to the contact-wheels 1, it being understood that the current is taken from the positive wire 2 through one of the trolleywheels 1, from thence through a wire 20 and suitable leads to the motors, and from the latter back up to the other wire 20, through the other wheel 1, and so to the negative wire 2.

As is evident, especially from Fig. 2, the

conveyance may move along a line parallel with the trolley-wires at such a distance there from as to turn the trolley-pole 3 so that it stands at an angle of nearly seventy-five to eighty degrees with the trolley-wires as viewed from above and the trolley-wheels still keep in perfect contact with said wires. It is also evident that when the conveyance turns at an oblique angle relative to the wires 2, as when it veers from moving along one side of the wires to the opposite in order to avoid some obstruction or vehicle, the lazy-tongs will also take a similar angle with reference to the wires; but the wheels 1 being horizontal still keep in perfect contact with the wires. This horizontal arrangement of the trolley-wheels is of course of itself insufficient for this purpose, but coupled with the resilient extensibility of the lazy-tongs to make up for the greater distance obliquely from wire to wire than directly across the trolley-wheels are retained in touch with the wires without the motorman having to pay much attention to the course of the convoyance relative to the trolley-wires. The trolley-pole being made fourteen feet in length, it is possible for the conveyance to travel with its center fully ten feet from the center line of the wires in either direction. Doubling this and adding it to the width of the car and we get twenty-six feet as the width of a road along any part of which the conveyance can travel. Another object in having the trolleywheels capable of considerable lateral divergence, as by the lazy-tongs, is that they may still keep in contact with the wires even when the latter are pressed apart to a considerable distance midway between the wire-supports, the normal width being preferably eighteen inches.

To apply the trolley to the wires, the trolley-wheels are drawn together by a suitable means and at the same time the trolley-pole given an upward pressure to carry the said wheels up between the wires 2. A means for accomplishing this comprises the rope 30, passing about the pulleys 31 32 and terminating in branches 34:, whose ends are attached to the extremities of the lazy-tongs,

as at 35, said branches passing about pulleys 33. In this manner whenever the rope 30 is forcibly drawn upon the extremities of the lazy-tongs are brought toward each other, while at the same time the efiect of the pull between the pulleys 31 32 is to elevate the upper end of the trolley-pole. The trolleywheels beingthen released fly apart under the effect of the springs 16. This brings the cords or ropes 12 against said wires. The occupants of the conveyance then pull downward upon said ropes, thereby drawing the trolley-wheels toward the said wires until the latter are reached by the extension-arms 11, from which they pass to the grooves of said wheels. In this manner the trolleywheels are brought into engagement with the wires very easily and quickly.

Among other advantages obtained from my arrangement of laterally-pressed horizontal trolley-wheels are the following: first, their ability of remaining in perfect contact with the trolley-wires notwithstanding the divergence of the conveyance to either side of the trolley wires; second, the wheels being grooved and strongly pressed apart against the wires constitute, in efiect, a dovetail en gagement of parts, which powerfully resists any tendency to separation; third, they permit of ready automatic switching from one line to another.

What I claim as my invention, and for which I desire Letters Patent, is as follows, to wit:

1. The combination with two parallel positive and negative conductors fixed above a roadway, of a conveyance freely running on any part of such roadway, horizontal trolleywheels elastically pressed in opposite directions against lateral faces of said conductors, and connections between said wheels and conveyance, substantially as described.

2. The combination with two parallel positive and negative conductors fixed above a roadway, of an electrically-propelled conveyance freely running on any part of such roadway, horizontal trolley wheels elastically pressed in opposite directions against lateral faces of said conductors, and means yieldingly supporting said wheels from said conveyance, whereby the trolley-wheels remain in safe engagement with the conductors whether the course of the conveyance be directly beneath the same or at considerable distances to either side thereof, substantially as described.

3. The combination with two parallel positive and negative conductors fixed above a roadway, of an electrically-propelled conveyance freely running upon any part of such roadway, horizontal trolley-wheels elastically pressed apart against said conductors, and an inflexible connection between saidconveyance and wheels yieldingly supporting the latter, whereby the trolley-wheels remain in safe engagement with the conductors whether the course of the conveyance be directly beneath the same or at considerable distances to either side thereof, substantially as described.

4. The combination with two parallel positive and negativeconductors fixed above a roadway, of an electrically-propelled conveyance freely running on such roadway, two horizontal trolley-wheels elastically pressed apart against lateral faces of said conductors, connections between said conveyance and wheels; and means for temporarily forcing said wheels toward each other for the purpose of applying them to, or removing them from, said wires, substantially as described.

5. The combination with an electric conductor fixed above a roadway, of a conveyance thereon, a horizontal trolley wheel pressed laterally against said conductor and ICC having its bearings provided with a rigid extension depending flush with its flanges, an inflexible connection supporting said wheel from said conveyance, and a cord hanging from the lower end of said extension into reach of the occupants of the conveyance, substantially as described.

6. The combination with two parallel positive and negative conductors, of an electrically-propelled conveyance beneath said conductors, two horizontal trolley-Wheels laterally pressed against said conductors and connected with said conveyance, ropes arranged to temporarily force said wheels toward each other, and extensions projecting downward from the bearings of said wheels flush with the flanges of the latter, substantially as described.

7. In an overhead trolley, a pair of horizontal trolley-wheels in combination with an elastically-extensible support therefor, a trolley-pole terminally connected with the center of said extensible support,a conveyance yield ingly supporting said pole, and means maintaining parallelism between said extensible support and the transverse line of said conveyance, substantially as described.

8. In an overhead trolley, a pair of horizontal trolley-wheels in combination with an elastically-extensible support therefor, a trolley-pole terminally connected with the center of said extensible support,a conveyance yieldingly supporting said pole, and wires joining the extremities of said extensible support with said conveyance and constructed to maintain parallelism between said extensible support and the transverse line of said conveyance, substantially as described.

9. The combination with two parallel positive and negative conductors fixed above a roadway, of an electrically-propelled conveyance running thereon, horizontal trolleywheels elastically pressed in opposite directions, and means yieldingly supporting said wheels from said conveyance at the approximate height of said conductors, substantially as described.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing in-.

Witnesses:

GUY H. HOLLIDAY,

HELEN A. SCOTT.

Images