Overhead Rail Guidance And Signaling System
OwnerJeremiah David Heatoninventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An overhead railway and trolley for transporting miners out of a mine. The railway is formed by connected rails that are mounted to a roof of a mine. The trolley is mounted to a bottom flange of the rails and includes wheel assemblies having at least two wheels mounted side-by-side, and each is configured to engage and roll along a top surface of the bottom flange. The trolley has a clicker that is configured to engage protrusions extending away from the bottom flange. The clicker permits the trolley to travel out of the mine but prevents it from traveling into the mine. The trolley also includes a pair of handles that are configured to be gripped by a miner standing on a floor of the mine as he travels from the beginning of the railway to the ending (i.e., the egress direction).
Claims8
A guidance and signaling system comprising:
- an overhead railway in which one direction along the railway is defined as an ingress direction and an opposite direction along the railway is defined as an egress direction;
- a protrusion disposed on the overhead railway;
- a trolley mounted to and configured to move along the overhead railway;
- a protrusion engaging member disposed on the trolley and configured to selectively engage the protrusion of the railway for preventing the trolley from moving in the ingress direction, the protrusion engaging member configured to move between a first position where the trolley can be moved past the protrusion in either the ingress direction or the egress direction and a second position where the trolley can be moved past the protrusion in the egress direction only and is stopped by the protrusion when moving in the ingress direction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.