News from Central Europe.
Page 14
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Berlin Railway Buys Motorbuses. Curious Ploughing Trial Tests.
Front Our Correspondent in Berlin.
The Berlin Elevated-cum-Underground Electric Railway Co. has inaugurated its system of motorbus feeders, and several "fat" orders have gone to the Daimler Gesellschaft and the N.A.G.
The jury entrusted with the awarding of prizes to the motor ploughs entered for competition in the neighbourhood of Prague early in September has publicly confessed its helplessness to come to any " objective decision" at all. This after solemn deliberations extending over 10 weeks.
Motorbus Increased Dividend.
It is already tolerably certain that the Berlin General Omnibus Co. will pay 9 per cent. instead of 8 per cent, on this year's working, the financial improvement, being due to the higher profits obtained from the motorbus lines. Whatever increase in the working costs may have arisen from the much greater cost of petrol has been more than counterbalanced by the steady comparative diminution of costs for repairs and maintenance. This diminution is,. of course, due as much to the improvement of the chassis supplied as, on the other band, to more-expert handling. in the working company's repairing shops and a more-judicious-working of the rolling stock. Further developments in mechanical propulsion are contemplated, but the company might certainly make an effort to render the situation of the outside passenger more agreeable. This unfortunate individual is supposed to sit in a pool of water in rainy weather, the company providing nothing at all in the form of protection for the wooden seats ; nor may he even put up an umbrella. I regard the treatment of the outside passenger in winter as simply scandalous. That extra dividend might, I think, go in waterproof coverings for the roof seats.
Why the German Post Office Makes Little Use of the Automobile for the Transport of Parcels.
In an article on the English parcels-post service, the " Allgememe Automobil-Zeitung " emphasized the extraordinary use made' of motor propulsion for delivering parcels entrusted to the post office, compared with Germany: And the writer accounts for Germany's remarkable backwardness in this respect by the advantages 'legally secured to the German Post Office for the transport. of mails over the State railways. He points out that, agreeably with the Railway Postal Act, the Railway Board is bound, at the post office's request, to include, free of charge, a mail van in the make-up of every regular train, for the :transport of money, letters and book-post mails, in addition to parcels not. exceeding 11 lb. each in weight, and," further, to provide gratuitously the necessary clerks for working the
service on the road. For parcels over 11 lb. (5 kilos.) and for additional mail vans,the post office pays but a small sum. Under such conditions the parcels-post per rail has, of course, developed to an enormous extent in. Germany, and there., is no probability of the automobile playing anything, like the role it does in England for the transport ofpostal packages.
The automobile, however, is certainly destined to play an important part in the suburban service, which greatly needs speeding up. This can come only through the utilization of automobiles, since the suburban trains do not stop long enough at the stations between the termini to allow of mail bags being loaded and unloaded, and the horse is used at present. The provokingly-slow delivery of parcels in the Berlin suburbs I recently criticised in a paragraph contributed t.0 THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR. State Motor Lines in Baden.
The Baden Government has laid before the Diet a Bill for the establishing and working of State motor lines, and there is hardly any doubt about the result. Bavaria, the neighbouring State, has achieved satisfactory results with its system, which, initiated with five Daimler-Marienfeldes eight years ago, is now worked with some 250 passenger vehicles.
New N.A.G. Tipping Wagon.
The Neue Automobil Gesellschaft has put on the market a special.type of tipping wagon and trailer for the use of builders. A useful load of four tons can be carried' in the motor wagon's tipping body, which combines strength with considerable lightness, its weight having been reduced to a practical minimum, which is consistent with a maximum.of useful load. This body can be tipped on either side througlj the agency of a couple of winches, its hinged sides being let down by the simple knocking up of a lever out of its slot. The engine driving the wagon is the firm's listed type 07, which develops 32 h.p. The trailer's tipping body has a cross-partition with a view to unloading at two different places ; the ordinary bolt-and-chain arrangements are . employed for dropping and fastening up the flap-sides. In this case, the hoisting device consists of crank gear that actuates a female worm-block moving up and down a vertical screw and connected with "twin cables passing over fixed pulleys to hooks at the bottom of the body's back. Naturally, the free ends of the cables are attached to whichever side has to rise. In the illustration, the body ha been tipped for unloading to the left, and the cables are therefore attached to the hook on the right of the attendant.