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"Dangerous' Goods.

1st June 1905, Page 1
1st June 1905
Page 1
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Page 1, 1st June 1905 — "Dangerous' Goods.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

The system of classification of merchandise adopted by the railways of this country frequently acts harshly by its effect upon the economical distribution of products falling within the limits of the class for so-called dangerous goods. Numerous explosive materials, the majority of petroleum products, matches, and other articles of general commerce fall under the ban of the heavy rates which prevail, and it is only recently that some manufacturers and Government Departments appear to have realised that the self-propelled road vehicle provides a suitable means of avoiding the heavy charges which are imposed upon them by reason of their products being necessarily in close juxtaposition to enormous quantities of other goods both in the railway yards and in the trucks making up the other portions of the train loads of which they are a small part in themselves. It is quite right that railway companies should be protected against the risk which attaches to their conveyance of so-called dangerous goods by the right to levy an increased rate of freight, but the hardship of bearing the insurance is certainly not welcomed by those who have to cover it in the higher rates charged for their merchandise. It is only natural, therefore, that, of the many special uses to which motor vans and wagons are being put at the present time, we should find a marked tendency to adopt them for the purposes under review. We believe that this development is no temporary measure to secure a position in which producers of explosives and other dangerous products can exert a leverage upon the railway companies to secure a lower rating, but that it is a course which has the inherent advantages both of lower cost and of greater safety. A motor vehicle is a self-contained unit ; it is not subject to the violent concussions which are inseparable from shunting operations or train stresses and shocks ; it can be placed specifically under the control of a competent man who will have charge of its contents from the point of departure to the point of delivery, instead of the loads being subjected to innumerable handlings by ignorant parties ; it can run on any and every day of the week ; and it can be built without difficulty to comply with the several requirements of the

Home Office under the Explosives Act, 1875 (38 Vict., C. 17). On this last-named point, it may be added that any idea of impossible conditions should be dismissed, because the order of the Secretary of State making by-laves as to the conveyance of explosives on roads, and in certain special cases, is in every way a reasonable document. In the first place, manufacturers are not hampered by the laying down of any hard-and-fast specification to which they must adhere in construction, which means that the ordinary chassis of any vehicle, whether petrol or steam, can be utilised as the underframe and mechanism for the superstructure which must be designed in accordance with the requirements of the order in question. The general rule is that the bodies must afford a suffitient degree of safety from tire, and the course has been adopted of not allowing any motor vehicle to be used for the conveyance of explosives unless they have been previously inspected by one of H.M. inspectors of explosives after approval of a drawing lodged at the Home Office.

There are at the present time some 30 motor wagons exclusively occupied in the carriage of various classes of explosives between the factories and depots or different distributing stations, and a low estimate of the saving effected by each vehicle is ,300 per annum, without taking into account the daft that many trips are performed in a space of time that would be at least trebled by any other mode of conveyance. From the trade point of view, it is to be admitted that ordinary explosives such as gunpowder, fulminates, ammunition, fireworks, explosive shells, guncotton, and the like offer a limited field for the use of motor vehicles, though a complete system of road conveyance should certainly not enable the demand to be satisfied by the employment of less than some four or five hundred vehicles. It is, however, in connection with articles of a more common nature in commercial work, which are adversely rated in the railway classification, such as petroleum products, matches, glass ware, etc., that a very large opening presents itself to manufacturers for the pressing home of mechanical road transport as a solution. Apart from the saving to be effected, compared with cartages and railway charges, there is the assured certainty of -delivery at any particular hour that may be required by the buyer, and the owner of a motor van or lorry is able to pack his --g-tMs at his works in the knowledge that they will) never be aisttIrtied they reach their destination. It has tube borne in mind that the word "dangerous " in the sense that it is employed in the railway classification frequentirtheans nothing more than" fragile," so It must not be thought that every article of which the delivery may be more favourably handled by road calls for any special precautions in the construction of the body of the vehicle. The experience of the last six years has enabled manufacturers to ascertain the necessary elasticity to be provided in the springs for the suspension of different weights at various speeds. whilst it must be admitted by all that the degree of care to be exercised in the packing of goods which are somewhat easily damaged in transit presents no increased difficulty because the mode of conveyance is changed from rail to road.

It is within our recollection, when loads of sulphur matches were first carried in large quantities in Lancashire by steam wagons, that the consignors seriously doubted whether there would not be too much friction engendered by the tremors and oscillations arising from relatively high speeds

on an indifferent running surface, such as cobble stones and badly laid setts, but many tons of matches were so conveyed without a single accident or one penny claim for damage of any description.

A Possible Substitute for Rubber.

The misfortunes of the Leather-Shod Wheel Company, Limited, some eight years ago, will be within the recollection of many of our readers. We are reminded that the engineer of this now defunct company, Mr. Henry S. Fearon, Assoc. M.Inst.C.E., had consented to read a paper before the members of the Liverpool Self-propelled Traffic Association, entitled " Leather Tyres for Heavy Motor Vehicles," on a date in March, 1897, but the unfortunate fact that he was not in a position to put forward any satisfactory particulars led to the paper being cancelled. The great source of difficulty was to discover a method of tanning and otherwise treating the leather, whether of inferior or superior quality, which would exclude water from the pores when in use and would also ensure a sufficient life for the finished material. From a record of the experiments which we have seen, it appears that no tests were made of pigskin, and here we have what will probably establish itself as the solution of the leather-shod wheel problem. The hides of oxen, examined under the microscope, are seen to have a structure consisting of a large proportion of fibrous matter, with the fibres placed lengthwise of the ikin, these being held together by a gelatinous and albuminous mass of what is termed hide cement. Pigskin, on the other hand, most closely resembles the human skin, being built up of a much lower percentage of cementing matter, and having fibres interlaced instead of parallel one to the other, in addition to which the mass is much more dense than in the case of ox hide and generally more homogeneous throughout. Without labouring the question of the experiments which have been conducted during the past eight years, it must suffice to say that satisfactory results have been obtained with tyres made of pigskin, tanned by a special process, and impregnated with a proportion of bitumen under hydraulic pressure of some 3,000lb. to the square inch. It remains to be proved whether pigskin so treated will serve to resist the greater strains and wear which are inseparable from a wheel exerting a propulsive effort and not merely rolling on the road, but our examination of the system in question, and of the material which is produced, leads us to hold the opinion that it is a promising development of the tyre question. On the score of cost, it must be remembered that pigskins are virtually a by-product, because many thousands a day are allowed to go through the packing houses of Chicago and other American cities without any reckoning being taken of their value. In the same way, enormous numbers of pigskins are left on the animals in Southern Europe, and it is only a question of persuading the various interests concerned to skin the pigs to secure an enormous supply. The finished cost will, however, not be greatly less than the rubber. Arrangements which insure an incredibly large supply of material have been made by the promoter and inventor of the scheme for supplying pigskin tyres, and it only remains for owners of motor vans and lorries to co-operate in the question of tests under more severe running conditions than obtain with horse-drawn vehicles. Apart altogether from the question of shock absorbtion, we foresee a large use for such a tyre—once its life is demonstrated—because it will deaden noise, which alone is an important factor for heavy vehicles accustomed to run upon iron tyres.


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