The Building of the B – types.
Page 1
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
It is therefore with particular pleasure that we have been enabled, by the courtesy of the permanent. officials of the L.G.O.C., to secure for our readers the first published account of the great factory at Walthamstow, which now manufactures the machines used in the company's service. Additional interest accrues to this and the article which will follow next. week, from the fact that the shops in question are already manufacturing for other requirements than those of the L.G.O.C.
The early failure of the London motorbus—that it was a failure those who use the streets can testify, brought the commercial-vehicle industry perilously near to disaster. The overworking of under-powered and unsuitably-designed motorbuses, six and seven years ago in the Metropolis, undoubtedly put back the hands of the clock, so far as this industry was concerned, to a serious extent.
We are inclined to think, however, in view of recent enlightenment, that those awful days of motorbus development served their purpose well. Types have been evolved in record time, and old models have been superseded after a short but by no means eventless existence. Few details were left untried. So far, at least, as motorbus operation in London was concerned, the chassis were tested to the last rivet, to the single cell of the honeycomb radiator—itself now superseded. As a result, London is now served by a type of chassis which, in regard to its design and construction, leaves little to be desired, and all this has been done in a few years.
The industry has benefited, not by the manufacture of machines for the owning companies, but by the diffusion of the accumulated knowledge which it has perforce collected, by the training of designers, and of engineers and foremen for running jobs. The influence on type has been remarkable. As an exaninle of the manner in which the hard period of evolution and discovery has affected the industry all over the country, we may point to the fact that many of the early L.G.O.C. motor drivers have found remunerative and responsible employment all over the country, and in many instances in the Colonies and abroad.