THE FLEXIBLE GIRDER TRAMWAY.


This is an ingenious proposition for utilizing a modification of the wire
tramway system for overcoming obstacles (while retaining the ordinary
wire tramway or any light railway on other parts of the line), made by
Mr. Charles Ball, of London.

The flexible girder tramway is an improved system of constructing a
modification of the well known and extensively used rope or wire tramway,
and it is claimed that it will revolutionize the transport of the
products of industrial operations from the place of production to the
works or manufactory, railway station, shipping ports, or place of
consumption; and that in the result the introduction of the flexible
girder tramway will in many cases enable profits to be earned in
businesses which have hitherto been unremunerative. It is declared to be
at once simple, cheap, durable, and efficient. The improvement consists
in the employment, in addition to the usual tram wire (a hempen rope, a
wire rope, or a metallic or other rod), along which the load is
transported, of a second or suspension wire or rope to which the tram
wire is connected by tension rods or their equivalent at intervals
between the rigid supports or piers, the object being to diminish or
distribute the sagging or deflection of the tram wire, and thus lessen
the steepness of the gradients over which the load has to be transported.
The combined tram wire, tension rods, suspension wire, and accessories
are, for convenience, designated a "flexible girder."