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SOUTHEND S EXPERIENCE
Page 144
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with Trolley-buses
TT is less than three years since the County ...Borough of Southend-on-Sea put into service its first trolley-bus. At the moment it has four in service and five more are on order. Of those that are in use two are }tailless vehicles with Short Bros. bodies seating 24 persons each, one is a 34-seater A.E.C., whilst the fourth vehicle is a double-saloon Garrett six-wheeler seating 55 persons.
These vehicles are employed on a single route
two miles long, stretching from the beach at some distance to the east of
the pier and running to Priory Park in the north of the town. There is no overlapping of the trolley-bus and ordinary tram services, except at the turning point in the High Street, and then only for a few yards. Prom the Kursaal the route lies along Marine Parade, up Hartington Road to the High Street.
The new vehicles which are on order are all Garrett double-saloons, each to carry 60 people. They are, of course, rigid six-wheelers. When these new vehicles are in use a 4-minute service
will be given on the route, but, as Priory Park is such a popular rendezvous for visitors to the borough, it is quite probable that the fleet will have to be increased still further.
Our informant, Mr. R. Birkett, M.I.E.E., the borough electrical en
gineer, is most enthusiastic as to the merits of trolley-buses. He says they are extremely smooth running, free from exhaust gases, not subject to variations in the price of fuel, as they use the electricity generated from home produced fuel at the corporation's electricity works, and he claims that he can run them at lower operating costs than in the case of buses, although actually no municipal buses are employed in the borough. He considers that the electric motor is at the pitch of its efficiency, whereas the petrol motor may be said to be in a state of flux. In his experience the acceleration of the trolley-bus is valuable.
It has been found at Southend that the current consumed is much less than is the case with the ordinary tramcar.
The tramcar, of course, carries about 70 paswngers and weighs 15 tons, whereas the largest trolley-bus at present in use there carries 55 persons and weighs 10 tons fully laden. It is interesting to
note that the Garrett six-wheeler on pneumatic tyres consumes less current than the smaller trolley-buses on solid tyres. We noted that one of the trolleybuses, the Garrett, is equipped with a
particularly interesting type of indi
cator mounted on the canopy of the conductor'splatform and showing the state of loading in the upper saloon. We will not describe this here, as it is dealt with in detail elsewhere in this issue.