wireway

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A system of transportation by the agency of traveling or stationary wires. Wireways are used for carrying stone. ores, clay, coal, etc., from mines to docks or railroad stations, or from docks to coal-yards, or from sewage construction-works to docks or dumping-grounds, etc. The most common form is an endless traveling wire rope, supported on posts placed at intervals along the way, or, in some instances, supported only at each end, as in the crossing of rivers or ravines, or the descentof mountain-sides. Smallerways employ fixed wires on which travel light baskets for conveying money and packages in shops. In the traveling-wire systems the freight is placed in buckets or skips hung on the wire and traveling along with it. Arrangements are made for automatic loading, starting, stopping, unloading, and switching to branch wires. Some of the traveling-wire lines used in mines are several miles long. In short lines, as in cash-carrier systems, the traveling basket, ball, or car is sometimes moved by raising one end of the wire, when the car rolls down to the cashier's desk. See cash-carrier and telpherage. Also called wire-road, wire-tramway.