Caillet monorail

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Hester's Horse Drawn Mono Rail on Canvey Island
Passenger cars
Cailet Monorail by Du Croo and Brauns
Tilting lore
Sketch from the patent application from 1897
Hester's Horse Drawn Mono Rail on Canvey Island

The Caillet monorail was a monorail that was invented, patented and developed by Henry Jules Caillet in the late 19th century .

functionality

The rails of the Caillet monorail were placed directly on the ground on small support plates that were hooked onto the inside of the rail. They were screwed onto fishplate lugs . Although there was only one rail, the carts could have two or four wheels at a time, all in a line. Sleepers were not required and the track bed did not have to be ballasted. The rails could be laid in a zigzag pattern on inclines.

The hand-operated carts had 250 mm (10 inch ) diameter wheels , but the larger vehicles that were propelled by mules or horses had 500 mm (20 inch) diameter wheels. The pulling force of the wagons was applied from the side with the help of one or two pipe levers, and kept in balance by the operator or the draft animal. The freight cars had two angle iron levers that were connected by movable shafts into which the horses were clamped. The distance between the floor of the vehicles and the track never exceeded a few inches in order to keep the center of gravity as low as possible, which minimized the effort required to maintain balance. When the cart was parked it was on one side. Some of the trucks had moveable tail lifts to make loading and unloading easier.

Advantages and disadvantages

The Caillet monorail was used particularly successfully in France, India and Malaysia. In 1910, an article appeared in the Country Gentlemen's Association Estate Book that stated that the benefits of narrow-gauge railroading for an agricultural property were beyond question. The investment costs could be reduced by 75% by building a monorail. It consisted of 9 pound-per-yard rails and a cart that was balanced by an operator or horse or wheel on a jib at right angles to the cart.

The system was so light that it could be temporarily moved across the fields without much effort. The transport costs have been reduced to a sixth and the time required to a third compared to horse-drawn vehicles.

In June 1898, Henry Jules Caillet, who lived at 7 Boulevard St. Denis, Paris, granted a license to Eaton Devonshire of Chislehurst . As a result, the Monorail Portable Railway Company was founded in October 1898, which held the rights in Great Britain and the colonies of the Commonwealth. On November 17, 1905, an advertisement appeared in The Engineer for a book by the Monorail Portable Railway Company Limited, based at 22-23 Laurence Poutney Lane, London, in which Caillet's well-known monorail system was described with numerous pictures. The company went out in 1924.

Established routes

Patents

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b John L. Townsend: Caillet's patent mono-rail system. The Narrow Gauge Railway Society.
  2. ^ "Application from Henry Jules Caillet of 7 Boulevard St. Denis, Paris" . Retrieved May 14, 2017 and December 2, 2017.
  3. ^ A b The Caillet Railway System - The Wheelbarrow Line. A Success in Southern Australia. The Mercury , Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. May 31, 1911, p. 3. Retrieved May 14, 2017.
  4. ^ A b Peter Bosley: Light Railways in England and Wales. Manchester University Press, 1990. pp. 167-168.
  5. ↑ Grace's Guide: "The Engineer 1905 November 17th" p.502 (pdf p. 22 of 26), section 'Catalogs', column 2. Accessed May 14, 2017.
  6. ^ Letter by GT Lane & Co for The Monorail Portable Company.
  7. ↑ John Peterson: 'Wheelbarrow Lines': Caillet monorails in Australia. In: Light Railways , No. 238, August 2014, pp. 18–23.