First British telpher line openedIn 1885, the first electric telpher line, was opened in Sussex, England, by Viscountess Hampden with a simple ceremony. The aerial tramway carried clay from pits at Glynde nearly one mile to the railway. The line was made with a double set of steel rods, each 66-ft long, 3/4-in in diameter and 8-ft apart, supported on wooden posts at a height of about 18-ft above the ground. An electric locomotive hauled ten buckets at a speed of up to 5 mph, hanging by their travelling wheels from the same steel line which carried the electric current. Each 100-lb bucket carried up to 300-lb of clay. The inventor, who had died four months earlier, was Fleeming Jenkin. He coined “telpher” line to mean, in general, “the transmission of goods and passengers by means of electricity without driver, guard, signal-man, or attendants.”«* |
