either of wood or iron, and if the exigencies of the work render it
desirable, they may be mounted on trolleys and rails, in which
case the cableway is rendered portable, and can be moved about,
sometimes a great advantage in excavating work. The motive
power may be either steam, gas, or electricity. The motor is
situated in what is termed the head tower, which is sometimes a
little higher than the other or tail tower. Sometimes, but not
frequently, the latter is also fitted with a motor. The span
between the two towers sometimes extends to 2000 ft., but this
is exceptional. Very heavy loads are dealt with, sometimes as
much as 8 tons in a single load. The load, which may be carried
in a skip or a tray, is borne by an apparatus called the carrier,
which is a modification of a running head, consisting of pulleys
and blocks and running along the main cable or trackway. The
carrier is also fitted with pulleys or guides for the dump line.
The carrier is drawn along the main cable by an endless or
hauling rope which passes from the carrier over the head tower
and is wound several times round the drum of the winding engine
to secure frictional hold, then back over the head tower, to the
tail tower, returning to the rear end of the carrier. The hoisting
rope passes from the engine to the fall block for raising the load.
The dump line comes from the other side of the winding engine
drum and passes to a smaller block attached to the rear end of the
skip or tray. The whole weight of the skip is borne by the
hoisting rope, while the dump line comes in slack, but at the
same rate of speed. Whenever it is desired to dump the load,
the dump line is shifted to a section of the drum having a
slightly larger diameter, and being thus drawn in at a higher rate
of speed the load is discharged. The engine is then reversed, and
the carriage brought back for the next load.
This is in outline the mode of operating all cableways. This appliance has rendered great service as a labour saver in navvying, quarrying and mining work; in placer-mining, for instance, cableways have been found very useful when fitted with a self-filling drag bucket, which will take the place of a great number of hands. Cableways can be worked at a great speed, but a good mean speed would be 500 to 750 ft. for conveying and 200 to 300 ft. for hoisting. A cableway used in excavating work in Chicago was credited with a capacity of 400 to 600 cub. yds. per day at a total cost of 2d. per yard, including labour, coal, oil, waste, &c.
Coaling Ships at Sea.—In the coaling of ships at sea the cableway has rendered great service. The conditions under which this operation has to be carried out present many difficulties, especially in rough water. One of the chief obstacles is the maintenance of the necessary tension on the cable used in conveying the coal from the collier to the ship. The first test in coaling ships at sea, made by the British admiralty, took place in 1890 in the Atlantic at a point 500 m. south of the Azores in water 2000 fathoms deep. Ten ships of war were coaled, each vessel taking enough coal to enable it to steam back to Torbay, 1800 m. away. In this case the collier was lashed alongside the battleship it was feeding, thick fenders being interposed to prevent damage, but nevertheless as the colliers got light they pitched considerably, and one or two sustained dents in their sides. The ships did not roll, being kept bows-on to the swell, which became heavy before the coaling was completed. The coal was taken in by derricks at the main deck ports. It is clear that had the sea been really rough coaling in this fashion would have been impossible.
The most practicable method of coaling at sea yet devised is the marine cableway of Spencer Miller, which has been tried with some success in the American navy. It is intended for use between vessels 350 to 500 ft. apart. The ship being coaled takes the collier in tow, steaming at the rate of 4 to 8 knots; it has been found that a speed of five knots in moderately rough water will keep the cableway taut and maintain a sufficient distance between the crafts. The collier is fitted with an engine having double cylinders and double friction drums, which is placed just abaft the foremast. A steel rope ¾ in. in diameter is led from one drum over a pulley at the mast head and thence to a pulley at the head of shear-poles on the vessel being coaled, and brought back to the other drum. The engine moves in the same direction all the time and keeps on winding in both the strands of the conveying rope. Should the two vessels increase the distance between them during the operation of conveying the coal bags, of which two, weighing 420 ℔ each, may be fastened to the carrier, the extra rope called for is obtained by slipping the upper strand from the drum; this increases the speed of the upper cable. On the other hand should the distance between the vessels be reduced, this operation is reversed, the speed of the upper strand being reduced. To keep the carriage steady on its return empty, a rope, known as the sea-anchor line, is stretched above the two strands of the conveyor line, and under a pulley on the carriage. This cable is attached to the vessel, resting on a saddle on the shear head, whence it leads through the carriage over pulleys at the head of the foremast and mainmast of the collier, running on astern several hundred feet into the sea. A drag or sea-anchor, usually made of canvas and cone-shaped, is attached to the end of this rope. This anchor is used to support the empty carriage on its return to the collier. The diameter of the cone’s base is graduated to the speed of the vessels. Thus in a smooth-water test, with a ship steaming at 6 knots, one 7 ft. in diameter was used, while the same anchor answered its purpose very well with a ship doing 5 knots in rough water.
The results given by this system of coaling at sea are relatively satisfactory. Tests made in the United States navy showed that 20 to 25 tons of coal per hour could be delivered by a collier to a war-vessel during a moderate gale. As the ship was under steam all the time and consumed 3 to 4 tons of coal per hour, the balance of the coal bunkered amounted to between 16 and 20 tons per hour, or say 384 tons in 24 hours. It has been suggested that under service conditions the speed of the towing vessel might be increased to 8 or 10 knots an hour; this would of course increase the coal consumption unless the collier proceeded under her own steam. But in such a case the space between the two crafts might be diminished, which would have the effect of causing the cable to sag and of stopping the work, since the conveyor cable to act properly must be kept taut. In Great Britain the Temperley Transporter Company have taken up this method of coaling at sea, working in collaboration with Spencer Miller, and have introduced several improvements in detail. Their system has been tried by the British admiralty.
The coaling of a large vessel by this appliance has the advantage of economizing hand labour. One man is required to work the hoist on the collier, while 20 men will be in the hold filling the bags and delivering them to the deck, where 15 or so will transfer the bags to the lift. One or two men suffice for the overhead work; their station is in the trestle trees. On board the receiving ship a few men will be stationed at the shear head to empty the bags into a canvas shoot, and then return them, while there will be the usual force of bunker trimmers. A ton of coal per minute has been transferred from the collier to the vessel, but for this capacity the ships must not be too far apart, else the rope would not remain taut under such loads. During the Russo-Japanese War, many of the Russian battleships were coaled by means of aerial cableways. The coaling of vessels in this manner seems a success, but it would be desirable to increase the carrying capacity of the cableway or to duplicate the installations.
Telpherage.—A telpher ropeway or cableway may be defined as a ropeway or cableway worked and controlled electrically, only a rail rope being required besides the live rail or wire from which the electric current is taken. Telpherage was devised by Professor Fleeming Jenkin in 1881, and developed by him in conjunction with Professors W. E. Ayrton and J. Perry. The telpher itself consists of a light two-wheeled truck, carrying the driving motors, which, to avoid gearing or other complicated mechanism, are usually coupled directly to the axles of the telpher. Thus the telpher is a self-propelled electric carrier running on a mono-rail, which, according to the conditions, may be a steel rail or a steel cable. From the telpher are suspended carriers which can be adapted to any kind of material. In many cases the whole load may be suspended from the telpher, or the load, especially if of some length, may be supported at one end
