A drive unit for driving a carriage which can be displaced along a transporting path comprises a barrel cam, which can be driven to rotate and has a drive groove for engagement of a driver arranged on the carriage, and also comprises a control device for controlling the drive of the carriage. The barrel cam has a first barrel portion and a second barrel portion, which is separate from the first, wherein the barrel portions can be driven independently of one another, and wherein the control device is designed so that, once the carriage has been received from a separate drive unit, it can accelerate the carriage by means of the first barrel portion and can supply the accelerated carriage to the second barrel portion.

A conveying device has interlockingly coupled, rectilinear screw shafts which are driven by a motor. The screw shafts are juxtaposed to an inclined rectilinear portion of a gradient portion in a traveling route of a conveying traveling body and to at least fixed regions adjacent to the gradient portion of respective upper and lower horizontal route portions connected to respective ends of the gradient portion. The conveying traveling body has a pair of front and rear driven rollers engaging with the screw shafts, and an interval between the pair of front and rear driven rollers is set to a length not shorter than a rectilinear distance between end portions of the screw shafts positioned at respective sides of each of arcuate portions at respective upper and lower ends of the gradient portion to make the conveying traveling body travel continuously between the respective upper and lower horizontal route portions.

A suspension conveying device according to the present invention includes screw shafts of two suspension line pulling-up/feeding mechanisms in a conveying traveling body 1. The screw shafts have low-speed drive regions, in which feed pitches for driven bodies are small, and high-speed drive regions, in which feed pitches for the driven bodies are large. The screw shafts are installed so that the low-speed drive regions and the high-speed drive regions are disposed mutually oppositely as viewed from the driven bodies when a conveyed object supporter is at one end of an elevation/lowering stroke, and the conveyed object supporter is tilted in a middle of the elevation/lowering stroke when the screw shafts are driven to undergo forward/reverse rotation at a fixed speed by a motor.