Heels Dug In
Page 73
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Bird's Eye View By The Hawk
THERE is, I learn, no likelihood that the provincial bus I companies will capitulate to any new demand for increased wages made by the unions. They do not regard themselves as bound to maintain the differential between London and provincial busmen's rates of pay established by the Industrial Disputes Tribunal last July.
Indeed, they think the Tribunal's decision was given under pressure of a strike and that any new claim by the unions would be a breach of faith. July's strike was generally unpopular with busmen, although they were pleased with the result, and it is improbable that the unions would again go so soon to such lengths to enforce a claim. It may well. be on this occasion that when the companies say "no," they mean "no."
• Linz. to Find
.ONE of the most informative and best-laid-out municipal ,•–• transport 'annual reports comes from Bradford Transport Department, whose 'general manager is Mr. C. T. Humpidge. He is not, however, a harbinger of good news.
In his report for last year he tells the transport-committee that they have an outstanding debt of £469,000, in addition to which they will have to find some E450,000 for •the purchase of new vehicles in the next few years. Of a fleet of 186 trolleybuses, only 20 new vehicles have been purchased since the war and only 78 "first-line" trolleybuses are available. The 196 motorbuses include 27 war-time models, which will soon have to be replaced.
In and Out
THIS does not exhaust Mr. Humpidge's tale of woe. Road staff come and go at the rate of one a day and the department is short of 100.
Instability in staff is matched by instability in passengers, of whom some 20m. ayear, representing a drop in receipts of £240,000 have been lost since 1950. Who would be a transport manager?
Unready Reckoners
THOSE who advocate a change to decimal currency should spare a thought for the bus conductor. The Government of India are going over to decimal coinage. In the future there are to be 100 naya paisa, instead of 64 pice, to the rupee, but for the next five years both naya paisa and old pice will be legal terrder.
Calcutta Tramways Co., Ltd., have had the task of trying to convert fares to the new currency and, to settle an argument, a government tribunal has been instructed to decide upon the conversion table.
With admirable restraint, Mr. D. E. Webb, chairman of the company, says in his annual statement: "One can well imagine the problems of a conductor being offered old pice for a naya paisa fare and the resultant calculation on the question of how much change, if any, and in what currency."
Knowing Calcutta and the explosive habits of its inhabitants, one can.
• • Open Wide, Please
DESIGNERS should beware of the proverb that it-is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a. fool. than to open your Mouth and prove it. As Sir Geoige H. Nelson pointed out in his, presidential address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, it is liable to work in reverse.
Most problems in mechanical engineering, • he said, involved considerations of metallurgy', ,stresses and lubrica.: tion, and fe,w men had an intimate knowledge of each of these subjects. Unfortunately, Many designers, engineers and others were reluctant to disclose their lack of-knowledge by consulting other people. "I believe this is a disastrous outlook," said Sir George. Customers, who have to pay for the disaster, will 'echo these sentiments,
Hot Liquids
I GATHER-that competition in the haulage of bulk liquids
is becoming fierce and that some long-standing contracts have recently been transferred to new operators Who offered lower rates. One would have thought that this kind of specialized work was reasonably secure, but events are proving otherwise.
:Round the Corner.
WILL the double-decker of the future be an integral design with independent suspension all round, a fully automatic gearbox and an air-cooled engine? A'vehiele of this kind is, I hear, on the drawing board—hut whose? That is my secret.
They're Not Stopping
'CGYPTIAN expresS trains do not stop at Dairut because
of British revenge for the 1919 revolt, says a message from Cairo. Many British buses no longer stop as frequently as they used because of the bus workers' revenge for their employers' July revolt.