[f. TRANSPORT v. + -ER1.]
1. One who transports.
1535. Act 27 Hen. VIII., c. 14 § 1. The said … Tanners or other person transporter of the same Lether.
1562–3. Act 5 Eliz., c. 12 § 4. No … Carrier, Buyer or Transporter of Corne.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 209. A thing usuall it is betweene Tripoly and Aleppo … to make tame Doues the speedy transporters of their letters.
1744. J. Paterson, Comm. Milton’s P. L., 305. The transporter of departed souls into hell.
1906. Times, 21 Aug., 5/1. The result of the increased number of transporters is that the price of everything has fallen.
2. Any carrying apparatus; esp. a device for transporting coal from a quay or from one vessel to another.
Transporter-bridge, a bridge over a navigable waterway, high enough not to interfere with navigation, carrying a suspended platform or car which travels from bank to bank and conveys the traffic. So transporter car.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 25 July, 5/2. Mr. Temperley’s ingenious contrivance for coaling rapidly…. The ‘transporter,’ as it is called, is made of steel, beam-shaped,… and fitted with an automatic travelling carriage suspended from the lower flange of the beam. Ibid. (1894), 31 July, 7/1. The ‘B’ Fleet has now been coaled with exceptional rapidity and without recourse to the Temperly transporter. Ibid. (1904), 2 Sept., 10/2. The Runcorn Transporter Bridge, now being erected, has its towers made wholly of steel. They rise 190 ft. above high-water level. Ibid. The transporter car … is suspended from the trolly by steel=wire ropes.
