Self powered transport

There was a mining operation that used gravity for transport of the ore, it was an elevated line with tower supports, the full buckets would come down the mountain lifting the now empty buckets back up the side of the mountain to be refilled...

That is a very good example of common sense mechanical engineering that puts gravity to work without external power source.

Hats off to the design engineer(s).

It was the brainchild of Richard Birdsall Rogers, chief engineer on the project. Rogers Street and Rogers Cove in Peterborough are named after him. Descendants of his still live in the area - ran into Daphne Rogers (musician and poet) just the other day.

About 50 years ago the manual valves and gate locks were replaced with electrically operated valves and locks. Completely unnecessary for proper operation but enables centralized control from the lockmaster's booth. It's a beautiful thing to see in operation. Moves in utter silence. Been through it twice. Trent Canal connects Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Very scenic route. Recreational boaters from all over eastern Canada and the US come through.

Very few ideas can survive that long,much less the mechanisms generated by those ideas.This is a well deserved tribute to Mr RB Rogers.It has outlived it's inventor and will probably be still working in another hundred years or more.The principles are so basic.

I'm sure a few bearing changes have occurred over time.

Another enduring design comes to mind:Railroads.

The basic principle has endured and probably will continue into the foreseeable future.

Upgrades have been made,and will continue to be made as technology improves,but the basic idea will still be valid.

The precursor of modern railroads was developed in the 1500's as a wooden track for wagons,and eventually evolved to steel,steam,diesel electric,Maglev,etc.

The basic simple designs will long endure.

After humans have migrated or disappeared from this planet,another species may put them back to work..who knows?

With reference to SE post. From watching the youtube channel on Ghost Town Living this process was employed at the Cerro Gordo mine where the full buckets travelled down an aerial wire way and pulled the empty buckets back to the starting point of the cable way.

No, it cannot be used anywhere. It can only be used where the payload needs to be delivered to a lower potential energy location.

The transport carts I saw were loaded from a conveyor table higher than the receiving platform,and as they traveled,the spring motor was loaded.When the load was dumped,the spring motor unwound and returned the empty,lighter cart to the start position.The carts traveled on tracks in the floor.

Like SE said about the mining operation.

The receiving position does not have to be very much lower than the loading position.

So a person would have to walk up a few steps when departing to ride to the next building on the same level.Rinse and repeat as necessary.

Beats going down and up 20 floors by elevator and walking between buildings on the sidewalk.

I have often wondered why MRTs (Mass Rapid Transport / underground / subway) are not designed like roller coasters.

I've only showed a small section of platform at either end, and "broken" the track between stations.

The initial drop needs to be about 5 metres to give a speed of 10 m/s (just over 20 mph) and the small slope between stations is just to overcome friction losses. The only traction power needed is for the up slope at the entry to the next station.

You would need an easily deployable winch for emergencies.

I guess the biggest problem is that gentle slope between stations: longer legs could have intermediate traction sections.

This could be deployed from both ends,giving two way traffic.Use a magnetic reluctance brake at the ends to reduce and control speed with no friction wear.( An aluminum disc sandwiched between permanent magnets). A generator could also be employed to harness the excess energy on the down hill side.This energy could be used to provide lighting loads in the pods,etc.

Magnetic reluctance could also be used for emergency elevators,to go down at a rapid but controlled speed,with no power requirements.Imagine dropping a permanent magnet through a copper tube for instance.Very useful in case of a power failure.

No need for a brake except for emergencies; the kinetic energy is all used up in the first 5 metres of climb at the end station.

Conservation of energy stuff. If you start and stop at the same elevation, you'll need some form of power to overcome wheel-to-rail friction losses (more so if there are curves) as well as aerodynamic losses, irrespective of whether the line is level or undulating. Aerodynamic losses increase with speed - in open air, the power required to overcome aerodynamic losses increases proportional to the cube of the speed, for example (not sure about inside the confines of tunnels). This implies that lower peak speeds would probably be the most optimal from an energy conservation perspective. There are software used for this when designing open track routes, but I'm not familiar with subway designs and its limitations linked to underground features such as building piles, municipal services, riverbeds, geology, etc. I'd like to do a search later on for any research done in this regard.

Of course, if the gradients are such that you need to brake to control speed on downhills, regenerative braking should be used to save on energy.

"Aerodynamic losses increase with speed"

It might be beneficial to blow/suck air through the tunnel: this might even do away with the need for the shallow slope between stations.

Escalators use very little power,even when fully loaded because the loads are pretty much evenly balanced between both sides.Mainly friction losses and unbalanced loads.

Sounds like another version of perpetual motion! Some energy has to be put in somewhere to get the loads to the higher elevation.

Think about it.The energy is from the higher elevation of the water.

That is because of the geography of the land

Like harnessing a water fall in principle.Gravity is the energy source in this case.

Putting gravity to work.

If you are referring to the lift lock I described - I live within walking distance of it. It is powered entirely by gravity - the weight of the additional 140 tons of water that flows into the upper chamber, which is 65 feet above the lower chamber. To my knowledge, in its 118 years of operation it has only been shut down once during the boating season. Fifty years ago, shortly after the valves and gates were converted from manual to electrical operation, one of the gates came open on the ascending chamber. Fortunately it was only a few feet into the lift. Several small boats were swept out in the torrent and into the lower canal. The boats were bashed up but if memory serves me there were no serious injuries. It was determined that the lockmaster's control panel had given a false indication that the gate was locked. Since that time, a visual inspection is made to ensure all gate locks are engaged before opening the crossover valve to start the ascend/descend cycle.

I seem to remember seeing a rail documentary about an iron ore mine that used the energy derived from downhill braking of the full trains headed to port to power the empty return train back up the major incline.

Somewhere in northern Europe. Was impressed by the intentional utilisation of the energy rather than friction brakes.