A transportation system, particularly for handling containers for transport by rail vehicles, lorries or ships, includes an elevated guideway comprising a plurality of spaced parallel longitudinal tracks connected by tranverse tracks which are movable along the longitudinal tracks. Vehicles travel along the tracks and are equipped with hoists for lifting containers beneath the guideway into the vehicles. Each vehicle is equipped with lower wheels which run on rails on the longitudinal tracks and upper wheels which run on high level guides on the transverse tracks. When it is wished to transfer the vehicle from one track to another at a junction this may be effected by stopping the vehicle at the junction engaging the appropriate wheels with the guides or rails, as the case may be, on the other track and then continuing movement along that other track. By suitable location of the transverse tracks and movement of the vehicle, containers can be picked up or deposited at any position within the total area covered by the guideway. There may be mounted at one side of the guideway a movable gantry on to which vehicles may be transferred from the guideway for transporting containers into and out of ships.
Containers are respectively loaded onto and delivered from two trolleys of a single crane at pick-up and delivery locations by guided travel of one of the trolleys along a fixed travel path on a boom between the delivery location at one end of the boom and a turn-table platform of the crane on which a pair of angularly related track paths are established for alternative alignment with the fixed travel path on the boom, to accommodate transfer of the trolleys between such fixed travel path and either one of the track paths on the platform.
Containers are respectively loaded onto and delivered from two trolleys of a single crane at pick-up and delivery locations by guided travel along a fixed travel path on a boom between the delivery location at one end of the boom and a central structure of the crane with a platform positioned thereon having a pair of parallel spaced track paths. Lateral movement of the platform alternatively aligns one of the parallel track paths with the fixed travel path to accommodate transfer of the trolleys along such fixed travel path and either one of the track paths on the platform between the pick-up and delivery locations.
An automatic article transport system capable of transporting a plurality of articles to respective destination positions within a short time and at high efficiency. The system includes a plurality of fixed rails, a plurality of movable rails each capable of running along a pair of fixed rails, and a plurality of hoists capable of running on the movable rails and of lifting and lowering a member to be transported. Controllers are installed on the movable rails and the hoists, respectively. The system further includes a central controller having a table and a device for generating a path for a member to be transported, and transmitters for transmitting control electric power and control signals between the central controller and the controllers installed on the movable rails and the hoists. A transport path for a member to be transported is determined in the path generating device on the basis of data on members to be transported, transport sequence data, and equipment and structure data.
The invention relates to a multiple trolley container crane having at least two trolley tracks (6, 7) disposed one on top of the other, on which trolleys (8) having running wheels, drive devices, and lifting devices move. Characterized in that running wheels (20) that can be laterally retracted and extended, and an integrated lifting system (21, 22, 24, 25, 26) are disposed on the trolleys (8) on the trolley tracks (6, 7), with which they support themselves on or next to the trolley tracks (6, 7) and thereby get from the lower to the upper trolley tracks (6, 7) and vice versa. The invention is suitable for fast loading and unloading of container ships, where several containers are supposed to be loaded and unloaded from them at the same time (Figure).
A terminal and system for the automatic computerized unloading of containerized cargo from container ships to trucks, railroad cars, other ships or storage. The terminal system is equipped to store or transfer unloaded cargo automatically by using independent container transfer vehicles. The cargo ships are moored between quays of a terminal building constructed in or adjacent to a waterway. Independent container transfer vehicles on an overhead transverse beam system lift a container up and away from a ship and transfer it to the elevated ground rail system without changing the container orientation, and then shuttle on elevated ground conveyance rails to other areas of the terminal to distribute the container to the pertinent transportation system or to storage.
