telpherage

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His telpherage, too, had given him considerable anxiety to perfect; and his mother's illness, which affected her mind, had caused himself to fear He was meditating a holiday to Italy with his wife in order to recuperate, and had a trifling operation performed on his foot, which resulted, it is believed, in blood poisoning.

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Definitions (4)

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  1. Telpherage lines are formed of steel cables suspended by brackets from poles or buildings and by various devices in crossing streams, turning corners, etc. Such lines may pass through or over buildings, under or over bridges, railroads, streams, or streets, and surmount considerable grades. A telpherage system may include single or double tracks, sidings, crossovers, branch lines, loops, and switches, or any other arrangements required by the business in which it is to be used. To supply current to the telphers, one or, usually, two wires are suspended over each track, every telpher taking its current by means of a trolley. The telphers may run alone, every one carrying a load suspended beneath it, or may have one or more trailers carrying a part of the load or other loads, and two or more telphers may, with their trailers, be made up into a train. The loud, whatever its character, is suspended under the telpher or trailer on a platform, or in a bucket, car, or cage, or it may be carried in a sling or net or by means of barrel-hooks. Nearly all telpherage systems now include an electric or mechanical hoist with each telpher, so that the load can be lifted from the ground to the elevated trackway, and may then be transported to its destination and again lowered to the ground, or to a wagon or freight-car, or to the hold of a vessel. The operation of a telpherage line may be almost completely automatic and managed from one” station, or it may be controlled by an operator, called a telpherman, who rides with the load as it travels on the line. The automatic lines may be controlled from either end of the line, the movement of one electric switch causing the hoist on the telpher to lift the load to the trackway, and also causing the telpher to proceed to its destination with the load, and, in the case of freight in bulk, to dump it and return empty to the starting-point. Automatic lines also employ carriers that may be loaded by hand, hoisted to the trackway, despatched to any point on the line or branch line, and lowered to the car, floor, or storage-place, ready to be unloaded by hand.
  2. Transportation effected automatically by the aid of electricity; specifically, a system of electric locomotion especially adapted to the transfer of goods, in which the carriages are suspended from electric conductors supported on poles. Every carriage or train of carriages contains an electric motor, which takes the current from the conductors upon which it runs. This word “telpherage” … is intended to designate all modes of transport effected automatically with the aid of electricity. According to strict rules of derivation, the word would be “telephorage”; but in order to avoid confusion with “telephone,” and to get rid of the double accent in one word, which is disagreeable to my ear, I have ventured to give the new word such a form as it might have received after a few centuries of usage by English tongues, and to substitute the English sounding “telpher” for “telephore.” In the most general sense, telpher lines include such electric railway lines as were first proposed by my colleagues, Messrs. Ayrton and Perry. The word would also describe lines, such as I have seen proposed in the newspapers, for the conveyance of small parcels at extremely rapid rates. But to-night I shall confine myself entirely to the one specific form in which the telpher line first presented itself to my mind, and which it has fallen to my lot to develop. In this form telpher lines are adapted for the conveyance of minerals and other goods at a slow pace and at a cheap rate. Fleeming Jenkin, Jour. Soc. of Arts (1884), XXXII. 648.

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Examples (2)

  • His telpherage, too, had given him considerable anxiety to perfect; and his mother's illness, which affected her mind, had caused himself to fear He was meditating a holiday to Italy with his wife in order to recuperate, and had a trifling operation performed on his foot, which resulted, it is believed, in blood poisoning. —  Heroes of the Telegraph
  • His telpherage, too, had given him considerable anxiety to perfect; and his mother's illness, which affected her mind, had caused himself to fear. —  Heroes of the Telegraph
 

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