The Mechanical Handling and Storing of Material

5o8 THE MECHANICAL HANDLING OE MATERIAL Midlands. All that would seem to be required are more convenient bulk trucks, which the railway companies should provide, and tipping pits or hoppers to receive the grain in bulk from the flat-bottomed trucks which are tipped to empty, or from hopper-bottomed self emptying trucks, which should be provided by the owners of sidings where grain is received in bulk trucks for the service of either flour mills or granaries. Hopper-bottomed trucks are to be preferred on account of their quicker discharge. Unfoitunately such trucks would not be of much good for other purposes. The author would suggest covering the wide end of the hopper with an iron grating composed of flat iron bars with a mesh of 2 to in. This grating could be used as a floor for the inception of sacks. I he mesh would not be too open to walk upon, and the grating would not be in the way when filling or emptying loose grain. The Lidgerwood Rapid Unloader.—This can hardly be called a self-emptying railway truck, it really being a self-unloading train of trucks, whose vehicles are discharged in quick succession by mechanical means. This appliance is used on a complete train of flat-bottomed trucks with a guard on one side and open ends, the spaces between being bridged over by steel aprons hinged to their ends. By means of a cable and a plough the whole of the trucks are mechanically emptied. To begin with, the whole train is loaded by a steam navvy, the train of trucks forming one continuous trough without any divisions. When a train of this character arrives at the dumping station with its load the locomotive is disconnected and leaves the train in charge of the dumping engine. A typical method of unloading is as follows : between the dump engine and the train is a special car on which a Lidgerwood winding drum and engine are arranged. The whole train is moved up to the point of entrance upon the actual dumping position, and here a chain is temporarily stretched across the track just back of the car containing the winding drum, the ends of the chain being secured to two suitable poles on either side of the track. The free end of the steel cable on the winding drum is now attached to the transverse chain. 1 he dump engine now goes forward carrying the train with it, the winding apparatus permitting the cable to unwind at the forward movement, which continues until the rear of the train has arrived at the two poles. The cable now extends all along the pile of spoil, and the end which has been temporarily secured to the transverse chain is now unfastened and attached to the great plough on a separate car, this plough having a single face extending obliquely across the floor of the train. The train itself is now in the desired position on the. dumping spot, and the actual unloading is accomplished by operating the winding engine and drawing in the cable. The plough is drawn along the whole train, its great weight and form being sufficient to maintain it in proper position as the ploughing goes on. The spoil is pushed off the train on the open side, and falls in a long ridge close to the track. The trucks used are 39 ft. 8 in. long by 8 ft. 9 in. wide inside, the one side being 3 ft. high. The doors are hinged from the top so as to swing in an outward direction. Twelve such trucks were loaded in thirty minutes on one of the American lines, and over 4,000 cub. yds. of material have been handled by the steam shovel and train per day. The cost of filling such trucks on the Kansas City Southern Railway, U.S A., for the months of March, April, May, June, and July 1900, is stated to have amounted to 2.89 cents per cubic yard, or about l^d. 1 he Lidgerwood system was employed to a very large extent in the construction of the Panama Canal, chiefly on that part which was named the Tabernilla Dump. At one dumping point, labernilla, a total of over 34 miles of track was shifted