Manchester Victoria Station's Telpher

[rogerfarnworth]

Reading an old issue of the BackTrack Magazine I discovered something about Manchester Victoria Station, something of which I was completely unaware!

 

As an engineer in my past, I should have been aware of what a Telpher is. Sadly, I have only just realised!

 

It is an interesting piece of trivia.

 

The Telpher was used to transport parcels across the full width of the station and operated throughout the interwar period. You can find out more by following this link:

 

http://rogerfarnworth.com/2018/12/07/manchester-victorias-telpher

[25901]

You can see some of it in the third pic on here http://www.hall-royd-junction.co.uk/Hall_Royd_Prototype/Manchester_Victoria_Past-Present.html

 

And here's a cracker https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geneanet.org%2Fgallery%2Ffile%2F1%2F80%2Fc0%2F6513618%2Fnormal.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geneanet.org%2Fcartes-postales%2Fview%2F6094467&docid=MGkDBelXYnC5SM&tbnid=tAG8SirZNGQX9M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwi-nO-mjpHfAhW5URUIHcQSDpUQMwigAShUMFQ..i&w=996&h=637&itg=1&bih=754&biw=1536&q=Manchester%20Victoria%20parcels&ved=0ahUKEwi-nO-mjpHfAhW5URUIHcQSDpUQMwigAShUMFQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

 

And lastly 

Edited December 8, 2018 by 25901

[LMS2968]

Another of John Aspinall's contributions to the L&YR.

[Fat Controller]

Derived from the French word for a cable-car (télépherique) perhaps?

[101]

Interesting never seen that before - I wonder how the operators got in and out

[Arthur]

The Manchester Victoria telpher is a small example of the type. They were generally much larger structures installed to move bulk materials. Quite a few gasworks had them to move coal into and out of the stocking grounds and coke from the retorts. Here’s one that served Canon’s Marsh gasworks in Bristol.

 

 

A rather poor shot showing a telpher serving some stocking grounds. Large systems included several man operated carrying cars with turnouts on the monorail allowing quite complex systems to be developed.

 

 

 

U.K. builders included Strachan & Henshaw of Bristol and Mitchell Engineering of Peterborough.

 

.

[The Johnster]

Kudos to the L & Y for introducing the UK's first functioning monorail...

[jamie92208]

I believe that unmanned ones using a cable for suspension were known as Blondins after the famous trapeze artist.   They were often used for positioning materials in the construction of dams.  I've also just read a book that included a section about the Churchill barriers built to seal the eastern side of Scapa Flow during WW2.  They also used Blondins to carry and position large concrete blocks across each of the channels.  Some of these weighed several tons.

 

Jamie

[jim.snowdon]

Kudos to the L & Y for introducing the UK's first functioning monorail...

Well, it would be if it had been one, but it actually has two rails, with the carriage slung between them. More interesting would be how it got the power to the carriage. Was it 2-rail?

 

Jim

[jamie92208]

Well, it would be if it had been one, but it actually has two rails, with the carriage slung between them. More interesting would be how it got the power to the carriage. Was it 2-rail?

 

Jim

 

If you look carefully at the photo there appears to be a line carried on insulators below the main running suspension girders.  Presumably out of reach of the operator.

 

Jamie

[jim.snowdon]

If you look carefully at the photo there appears to be a line carried on insulators below the main running suspension girders.  Presumably out of reach of the operator.

 

Jamie

Thank you. On further close inspection, there are in fact two wires in that picture, one on each side, with a trolley pole on each side of the carriage, angled away from the operator. However, in the postcard picture that the Google link in post #2, these wires are not visible. But, the rails are not bolted directly to the U hangers, but attached via something quite bulky that would be consistent with some form of insulated connection. The obvious conclusion would be that it was once 2-rail, using the rails as the supply, and later converted to double trolley wire, presumably due to failings with the original system.

 

Jim

[jamie92208]

Thanks Jim.  I've also just had a good look at high magnification.   The running rails do seem to be at least a couple of feet apart and seem to be suspended from almost horseshoe shaped yokes.  The distance together with those rather high arm rests that are above the guy's shoulders would appear to put the two wires out of harms way.   I have seen other photos of this somewhere and I'm sure that the L&Y Society would be a good source of info.

 

Jamie

[The Johnster]

Blondins were also a feature of Slate Quarry working in North Wales, but they seem to have been more in the nature of aerial ropeways than fixed rails.  Maybe the same term is used for two slightly different things.

[Gibbo675]

Hi Folks,

 

I particularly like all of the little bells that warn of the telpher's movements and the ones on the load gauge to prevent collision with the roof tops of trains.

 

Gibbo.

[jim.snowdon]

Although there do appear to be bells on the low height gauge, what appear to be bells along the track are the insulators that carry the trolley wires.

 

Jim

[Arun Sharma]

Blondins were also a feature of Slate Quarry working in North Wales, but they seem to have been more in the nature of aerial ropeways than fixed rails.  Maybe the same term is used for two slightly different things.

Having recently "done" the 1500 metre "Zip" wire at Penrhyn Quarry, I should be quite pleased that the cables weren't electrified!

[jim.snowdon]

A fundamental difference between the Telfer and the Blondins used in quarrying and bridge and dam construction is that the traveller on the latter is no more than a travelling pulley block. All the power for travelling and hoisting comes from the ground based winding gear and one end of the suspension cable.

 

At the other end of the scale are now obsolete Hulett ore unloaders that were developed for the Great Lakes ports - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulett .

 

Jim

[Arthur]

 

Machines best appreciated in action, ten minutes of mesmerising mechanical motion;

 

 

Walthers did a kit, long since sold out.

 

.

[Nearholmer]

The first permanent Telpher in Britain was installed in 1885, to connect a clay pit to a siding at Glynde station on the LBSCR. the very first was, I think, an experimental line in Hertfordshire in 1882/3.

 

It was a jolly exciting thing at the time, because it was probably the only permanent goods transport system that used electric motive power. The Volks Electric Railway was a bare two years old, and I think still at its primitive stage (it might have 'gone permanent' in the same year), there had been a few demonstration railways at exhibitions, and the first part of the Giant's Causeway line had also opened in 1883, but apart from electric hoists, that was about it for 'heavy' electricity.

 

Good description dating from 1890 here, with picture off the exchange siding https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_37/July_1890/Telpherage_in_Practical_Use It mentions the automatic control system devised by Profs Ayrton and Perry, which readers here will be interested to note they first demonstrated by use of a rather brilliant model tramway, about 3" gauge, which was set up on trestles on portable baseboards ......... possibly the worlds first exhibition model electric railway!

 

I could rattle on about all this, because it is all at the core of very early electric traction, and the people involved were among those who effectively founded practical railway electrification.

Edited December 10, 2018 by Nearholmer

[woodenhead]

Machines best appreciated in action, ten minutes of mesmerising mechanical motion;

 

.

Good lord, I thought these were automated in some way till half way through and you are riding in the cab of the scoop that took the ore out of the ship.

 

It's like some sort of mechanical hell - a scene from Dune where they are spice mining.  Ever wondered how big scoops get every last drop of ore out of a flat bottomed hold - a mechanical shovel and some blokes with brooms.

[Joseph_Pestell]

You can see some of it in the third pic on here http://www.hall-royd-junction.co.uk/Hall_Royd_Prototype/Manchester_Victoria_Past-Present.html

 

And here's a cracker https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geneanet.org%2Fgallery%2Ffile%2F1%2F80%2Fc0%2F6513618%2Fnormal.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.geneanet.org%2Fcartes-postales%2Fview%2F6094467&docid=MGkDBelXYnC5SM&tbnid=tAG8SirZNGQX9M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwi-nO-mjpHfAhW5URUIHcQSDpUQMwigAShUMFQ..i&w=996&h=637&itg=1&bih=754&biw=1536&q=Manchester%20Victoria%20parcels&ved=0ahUKEwi-nO-mjpHfAhW5URUIHcQSDpUQMwigAShUMFQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

 

And lastly 

 

I knew about this. But I wonder why no other big railway stations adopted the same solution.

[rogerfarnworth]

I have not come across any other stations that have made use of a tephler. It might be that parcel traffic was particularly significant at Manchester Victoria, or the distances involved significant. I guess some stations would make use of subways for parcel traffic?

[jamie92208]

There were certainly some modern era installations for mail handling that involved conveyors from/to the platforms that then fed across the tracks to a sorting office.  I think that most of them have been demolished now.   Preston was one that I remember.

 

Jamie

[PenrithBeacon]

Not heard of the term Telpher before. I doubt if the LYR used the name.

[Fat Controller]

There were certainly some modern era installations for mail handling that involved conveyors from/to the platforms that then fed across the tracks to a sorting office.  I think that most of them have been demolished now.   Preston was one that I remember.

 

Jamie

It's a long time since I worked Christmas at Bristol Temple Meads, but my recollection was that the bridge there carried a roadway for the mail trolleys, with a system of paternoster lifts on which you hung mail bags. Conveyors were planned to be used, but the Post Office Workers Union 'blacked' them, and they were stacked in an unused part of the complex, along with the ALF automatic sorting frames.