Overhead conveyor which provides increased reactive force and traction to drive wheel on ascending rail sections

Abstract

A freight system comprising a conveyor adapted to be driven along a monorail track. A frictional drive wheel of the conveyor engages the upper side of the track and various embodiments of reactive force creating means are positioned to engage the underside of the track to create improved frictional forces during ascendancy. All of these embodiments employ the weight of the unit to create the reactional force and in all embodiments there are positioned a pair of spaced apart guide rollers that engage the underside of the track. In some embodiments, these guides rollers are resiliently biased by either separate springs or by making the guide rollers themselves resilient. In some embodiments there is provided an intermediate fixed guide roller to limit the degree of relative movement between the conveyor and the track. In one embodiment, the guide rollers are suspended by a Y shaped lever that itself carries the load transmitted by the conveyor.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.