The Vogue of the Bus in Germany.
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THE type of public-service vehicle which seems to hb
required' in Saxony, Bavaria and the other neighbouring f: totes is the single-deck vehicle which in England would be termed a "saloon coach." The term in general use is ".omnibus," and little or no distinction is made between the short-stage bus and the touring coach, a small (very small) vogue being granted the 'term "travel coach." The char-abanes remains as the chief Vehicle for long-distance. Pleasure trips; the saloon vehicle or single-deck bus serves for urban and inter-urban stage work, and where tratlie is heavy, as in Berlin, the double-deck bus conductsmuch of the ..nter
urban traffic. • • There is another type of vehicle used expressly for mails anti passengers, employed by the State 'Post Office (Reichspost). This varies in size according to. local requirements, and may carry four passengers and 800 lb. of mails and sv
parcels in what -e should cal a one-ton vehicle, or it may have a roomy bus body on a six-wheeled chassis, a small compartment behind the driver's 'cab. carrying about 5 or 0 cwt of mails, whilst the rear saloon will . seat about 24 people—sometimes. even •more. The roof of the bigger type of vehicle has luggage rails and is strong and capacious though to carry over half a ton of baggage.
Many villages and small towns lying away from the railway line are served by these vehicles from the nearest station, and the Postal Department has, for the past few years, been extending its service irk this direction. Formerly it employed 2,500 three-wheelers of the..Phanomen make for its mails, horsed vehicles carrying the passengers, but the 'department has gradually been changing over to the four-wheeled one-ton Phanomeii, which carries . (as we have said) four persons and .400 kilos of mails. Of these fourwheelersnearly' 500 are already in use,' and they are now being installed in service at the rate of about (35 per month or 800 a year, the three-wheelers being entirely displaced. The Phanomen is a simple chassis, its four-cylindered engine being cooled by air forced over the cylinders by a blower driven off the forward end of -the crankshaft, and is the right type of engine to put into the hands of a particular class of labour, none too expert or too careful. It must be remembered that for six. months of,'the year the weather in a great part of Germany. is very cold, the country not enjoying the benefits of the Gulf Stream that fall upon this country. Hence air-cooling removes the potentiality for a great deal of Mechanical trouble.
Perhaps it is because of the preponderance of cold weather that every passenger valricle is amply curtained over its windows. One notices that the tramcars in the towns and the better-class railway carriages have these Attings to act as insulators against the cold layer of air next to the glass. Doubleswindows with an air space between them would be
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better, forming equally good insulators and not obscuring the light, as curtains must do. Ventilation, again, is genesally confined to hinged panels above the windows and to roof extractors. In a few cases we found an air louvre in the front, -and in fewer cases still were any of the -windows arranged to drop. It is, of course, unwise to generalize from limited obserVation, but during our stay in Germany we have rarely seen an open window in a house, hotel, restaurant, or café, so that, maybe, the Briton is all wrong in his craving for fresh air !
. The vestibule is another, distinctive feature of Germany's public-service vehicles, no doubtl because passengers are accustomed to pick in to them' not only up to the limit of standing room, but beyond it. The drivers of the tramcars in Leipzig were surrounded by about 8 or 10 passengers, the conductor collecting the fares through a little drop window in the front sliding door. (From October Tat to March 31st this door may not be opened; or the inside passengers would die of the rush of cold air!) The buses, therefore, have accommodation for standing passengers in the vestibule, which is more often at the rear, but sometimes in the middle of the vehicle.
The usual door, equipment is one foldiag door to the vestibule, one door on the same side near the front, and one or two doors to the driver's compartment. Except wheri the driver is isolated in a partitioned cab, there is usually a seat at his side for the -conductor. There is no unanimity about the position, to left or rights of the driver. If there be a majority, it is in the case of the left side of the vehicle, but the right-hand position is adopted -to such an extent that it would not he Safe to stiy either way. Not a single instance in the .show (so far as ikessenger vehicles go), however, did we find of the forward position for the driver, beside the engine or aver it. Great Britain seems to have this idea exclusively to itself.
Every passenger-vehicle body shown is constructed of metal, for there is no instance of wood panelling. Except in one 'case; steel is the material employnd, the one exception being the 25-seater Durkopp bus, in which Duralumin is used.
Hansa-Lloyd display a beautiful saloon bus panelled in figured' walnut. A rear vestibule has separate armchair seats for four persons, and the forward saloon has six more armchairs and a long oval table, racks for pareela and light luggage and other fittings making for comfort on a tour. On the Hansa-Lloyd stand is a saloon bus, the forward section of which has two back-to-back seats down the centre of the vehicle. ,Three transverse seat's' complete the accommodation, two of them on the line of the wheel arches being back to back.
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The Magiriui bus is a roomy vehicle in which the seats arc disposed back to back 'so fat as possible. There are
thus three groups of four seats on the left of the bus, and to the rear of them a single seat over the wheel arch facing the centre line of the bus. On the right-hand side are two groups of four seats, a double seat at the front facing forward, and another single seat facing the like seat on the opposite side. The rear vestibule is entered through a doorway closed by a folding door, and there is a sliding door in the partition. The conductor and eight passengers could stand in the vestibule.
The Vomag 31-seater coach has a central vestibule, dividing the interior into three sections, but without doors in the two partitions. The entrance is the full width of the vestibule-4 ft. 3 ins.—and is closed by double folding doors. In the middle of the vestibule is a plated pillar with a small circular hand grip. The forward compartment seats four passengers and the rear section seats 21. As with many other passenger vehicles in the exhibition, the floor Overing consists of rubber matting over linoleum.
One of the few Weymann bodies is on a Steyr chassis -with a 30 h,p. six-cylindered engine. This vehicle seats 11 people, including the driver, and is :described as the Monte Carlo type, a specimen having participated in the Monte Carlo Rally and gained a prize. There are four rows of seats, three of them being three abreast, one of the seats being a tip-up, and there is a seat next to the driver.
The Steyr "Monte Carlo" saloon bus, all the seats of which face forward, The Opel bus would seat 18 persons. It has a Kuhn body built on the Weymann principle, and is a saloon divided into three compartments, each seating eight people. There is room for a passenger beside the driver. Each compartment has two entrance doors, six doors making quite a generous allowance for one vehicle.
One of the most beautiful coaches in the exhibition is the 32-seater Bussing saloon intended for long journeys between Dresden and Leipzig on the one side over the Bavarian passes and Teplitz and Chemnitz on the .other. It has two saloons, separated by the lavatory and kitchen, which are just to the rear of the wheel arches. The forward saloon seats 24 in twin cane seats upholstered in a close-texture velvet. They all face forward except those over the wheel arches. The rear saloon has seven fixed seats and two loose extra seats, and it has a folding table. The chassis is the Bussing six-cylinder six-wheeler, and the wheels are shod with 44-in. by 12-in, pneumatic tyres. The Bus Society of the State of Saxony employs over a hundred six-wheeled buses, all of Bussing make.
We were impressed by two buses, the bodies by Fritz Gaubschat, of Berlin. One of these seats 25 passengers. It has two doors on the near side (right-hand side), one leading to the small vestible, which has a seat for five persons and a low partition dividing it from the main seating accommodation. The covering for the comfortable double bucket seats was a tapestry in a delicate blending of saxe blue and fawn, the same material being used for lining the •body up to the waistline. The linoleum on the floor was toned to match the upholstery, and the curtains were saxe blue. This bus was mounted on a pneumatictyred N.A.G. chassis.
A 30-seater combination of an N.A.G. chassis and a Fritz Gaubschat body has a single middle door and a driver's door, the sections forward of the vestibule seating nine (five facing rearwards) and eight respectively. The rearmost seat accommodates five, with an eight-seat section in front of it. l'he front axle of this chassis is set back well below the engine in order to shorten' the wheelbase. This forward overhang is not pretty, however.
The 25-seater Durkopp bus with a 55-60 lip. power unit is the one vehicle of which the body was constructed of
The Ley saloon bus, with a very wide door on each side and two tipping seats.
aluminium, the roof being of wood. All the seats face forward in pairs, except that, over the wheel arch, the arrangement is back-to-back, which is quite good, as it makes two groups of four people, thus facilitating conversation. The vehicle is mounted on 36-in. by 8-in. Continental pneumatics on G.P. Simplex wheels. These wheels are largely adopted on German vehicles.
• The only petrol-electric vehicle which we have discovered in the exhibition is the 28-seater Faun. By the way, the driver's seat is always included in the rating of German buses, so that throughout this survey one Seat may generally be deducted from the number given. Small tables are provided on the Paun bus for each of the groups of four seats in the region of the wheel arches.
The steel body of the Ringfeder 13-seater bus is decorated with a profusion of rivet heads, which, in our opinion, is a practice best avoided, because they are a nuisance in cleaning a body. The accommodation consists of double seats on the off side and single seats on the near side of the gangway, the vehicle .width being narrow. This concern is not showing its six-wheeled bus.
The 20-seater bus seems to be a popular size of vehicle useful for a great deal of local traffic of the country. The M.A.N. bus of this type has quite a roomy vestibule with a sliding door in the partition separating it from the interior. The Elite. bus, seating 21. persons, , is another of the kind and is very tastefully finished. , The six-cylindered engine is not being disregarded for bus work. We have referred to one or two instances of it application, and the Brennabor works have a couple of 14-seaters with engines of this type and of 3 litres' capacity.
• The Krupp 28-seater has all its seats facing forward except that over the wheel arches the seats are placed back to back. Two of the seats, that by the front row of scats and that near the rear entrance, by being made to fold up and tip, increase the space near the 'doorways for movement.
• The all-weather coach shown by -Daimler-Benz is a typical vehicle, seating 20 'persons, and suitable for longdistance pleasure travel. Passengers' convenience is con
_ sidered in detail such as the' provision of arms to the seats next the gangway, of .hand grips to each seat back, of reticule holders, 'parcel nits, etc. The vehicle has a 70 h.p. six-cylimlered engine.' The saloon coach shown by Rudolph Ley has three compartments formed by the disposition of the seats—not by partitions. There is a very wide door on each side of the vehicle and near the middle. On each side the door opening is the full depth of two facing seats and of the space between them. On the off or left side one of the seats tips up to increase the passage space. A hinged seat increases the accommodation to that for six persons in the central compartment. Behind it there is room for nine and there is a single extra seat in the driving compartment. 'The body is well designed, with a clerestory roof having ventilators.
The Pang bus, which seats 31 persons, has its driver entirely partitioned off. The seats are all arranged to face in groups to take four persons, Large metal boxes are provided under three of the seats, access to them being given by lifting the seat cushions. The ambulances which are on view each takes two stretcher cases and are equipped with seats for attendants, cupboards, basins and water supply. The upper frame to carry the second stretcher is always made to fold against the side of the vehicle if it be not wanted, the extra support for the rear inside corner folding up and being secured to a fitting on the roof. The Hansa-Lloyd ambulance has but a single step between the floor and the ground ; the Stoewer ambulance is higher off the ground and is ap
proaehed by two very wide steps that fold up when not needed. Both have wide doorways, but the Elite ambulance has a doorway only two-thirds the width of the vehicle—amply wide for the passage of the stretcher and giving an opportunity for the provision of a wide bucket seat for the attendant.
Quite interesting is the use of a chassis (an Opel) provided by H. Ilarmening with two interchangeable bodies, one a van and the other a five-seater private car.