OPINIONS FROM OTHERS.
Page 27
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The Editor invites correspondence on all subjects connected with the use of commercial motors. Letters should be on one side of the paper only and, preferably, typewritten. The right of abbreviation is reserved, and no responsibility for views expressed is accepted.
Municipalities and the Motorbus.
The Editor, TILE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[2701] Sir,—My summary of towns where tramway undertakings or sections of tramway undertakings had been replaced by motor omnibuses did not profess to be exhaustive. I agree that Wolverhampton, with a served population of some. 110,000, should be added, and I willingly accept the testimony of the General Manager and Engineer of the Wolverhampton Corporation Tramways, Mr. C. Owen Silvers, that "In Wolverhampton all the tramways have gone." I may remind your readers that the conclusion to my recent article in The Commercial Motor was : "Replacement in now more than due to run up the scale of area and population." It is time that more tramway cities allowed motorfiuses into their centres, instead of incommoding the travelling public by keeping them out. ' Whatever the comparative life of a motorbus and tramcar, the appropriate depreciation provision for the former is included in any figures which I have given. The tramcar has now to provide for obsolescence.
Forecasts of mine during the past 30 years in respect of motorbus progress have at least been fulfilled and often exceeded by the actual happenings. I have confidence in awaiting the verdict of the next five or ten years as regards the necessity for large-scale city services by means of the modern motorbus. The time for speeding up substitution is unquestionably at hand.---Yours faithfully, E. S. SHRAPNELL-SMITH.
President, The Commercial Motor 50, Pall Mall, S.W.1. Users Association.
Keep Coaches Running in the Winter.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[2702] Sir,—It is now perfectly clear that the future prosperity of the important motor-coach industry must depend upon a steady volume of all-the-year-round traffic, instead of having to rely merely upon the summer rush and then storing vehicles for the winter. It is for this reason that one commends heartily the efforts which are being made by the Blackpool motorcoach owners to stimulate winter travel by road.
In these days of fierce competition between the railway train and the motor coach, it is useless for the motor-coach owner to think that he can cover all his expenses and make a sufficient profit simply by cunning his vehicles during the summer and suspendineopera tions during the winter. Standing charges are the same in winter as in summer. Depreciation goes on when a motor coach is stored just as it does when that vehicle is on the road. Actual experience is already showing that the cost of repairs and replacements is no greater wffien coaches continue running during the winter, whilst the turnover is, of course, much greater.
Modern motor coaches are provided with first-class all-weather equipment and, taking it all round, the rigours of the British winter climate are not so black as they are sometimes painted. I venture to predict that this winter we shall see many more motor coaches on the road, and I feel certain also that they will be well-patronized, granted that energetic steps are taken to bring winter road travel well before the public.—
Yours faithfully, C. W. BRETT, • London. Managing Director, Barimar, Ltd.