The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

MONO-RAILS AND TELPHERS 343 the furnace. The same machine is also suitable for dealing with long loads, such as timber baulks or metal bars up to 30 ft. in length. Automatic Telpher Installation by Adolf Bleichert & Co.—This interesting example is for a chemical factory, and is remarkable on account of the adaptability of the line to the existing condition. The raw material is unloaded from barges by means of a crane and grab, and transferred to a hopper from which the cars of the telpher are loaded. The cars electrically block each other automatically, and thus stop before the loading point until the preceding car has been dispatched, when they will automatically advance to be loaded. The raw material is carried to the stock shed as shown in Fig. 480, where it can be automatically discharged at any desired point. Winch cars run on the same track to re-handle the material (see Fig. 481). These lower the empty buckets to the ground level of the shed and pick up and carry the loaded ones to the factory where Fig. 480. Telpher Conveying Raw Material to the Stock Shed. the material undergoes the process of manufacturing. A ropeway with a total length of 5,000 ft. was also installed here for the purpose of handling the finished products. The cars for this are filled at the loading point whilst suspended on a mono-rail, and run under electric power to the foot of an inclined section of the track ; here they are drawn up to the height of the rails in the roof of the shed by the rope, to which they couple automatically, and again release on reaching the top (see Fig. 482). I he telpher cars then cross the factory yard on a long elevated bridge at the end of the finished product storage shed (Fig. 483), in which they travel along three tracks connected by switches. As with the line for raw material already described, the discharge can here also be effected automatically at any desired point of the storage shed. After this the telpher cars again return automatically to the loading point, and the process is repeated.. A telpher skip, with bottom door discharge for handling coke, also built by the same makers, is represented by the diagrams, Figs. 484 and 485. It is considered that