aoo,000 Polish Order : . Big Indian Contract
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IN conjunction with their Danish associ
ated company, Dansk Automobil ,13yggeri, A.S., Leyland Motors, Ltd., have received an order for 80 Royal Tiger Worldmaster underfloor-engined coaches from Motorimport, the Polish Government Purchasing Agency. The present order, worth about £500,000, is the third from Poland within the past few years. Three hundred Leyland buses and coaches are operating there. The latest vehicles are to open a Luxury express service between Warsaw and resorts on the Baltic coast. The 150 b.h.p. engines drive through Pneumo'Cyclic semi-automatic gearboxes. The 62-seat bodies will be built by the Danish factory on LERT.21 chassis of 20-ft. wheelbase. The bodies, 39 ft. long, will have extra seats folding over the gangway and special oil-burning heaters to withstand the cold of the Polish winter.
The interior panelling will be of a plastics material. A roof-mounted luggage grid will accept up to 14 cwt. and .a further 4 cwt. of baggage can be carried in the boot. Arrangements have been made for Polish maintenance engineers to attend a two-week course at the Leyland factory, followed by a week's instruction with the coachbuilders in Denmark. A fleet of 75 Leyland Tigers now being delivered to the West Bengal State Transport Department, Calcutta, is to be augmented by 40 special Tiger chassis of slightly different design. The wheelbase of the new version will be 17 ft. 6 in. (the original order was for 21-ft. 6-in.wheelbase models) with an overall length of 27 ft. 6 in.-5 ft. shorter than the standard vehicle. The buses will be powered by vertical six-cylindered 9.8-litre engines derated to give 100 b.h.p. at 1,800 r.p.m. The engines are manufactured in India in increasing numbers.
35 APPELLANTS SUCCEED
OF 71 appeals in 1957 which were determined by the Transport Tribunal, the appellants succeeded in 35. Eighty new appeals were lodged last year, but six were not prosecuted and one case was settled by consent without a hearing. Eighteen of the 72 appeals which were heard were dealt with in Scotland. Two of the three appeals pending from 1956 were not prosecuted.
A Licence Suspended for a Month
A N Micence vehicle operated by the Gateside Garage and Engineering Co., Ltd., Dundee, was suspended for a month by the Scottish Deputy Licensing, Authority, Mr. Alex Robertson, last week. Mr. Robertson said there was no doubt that the company changed their base from Gateside (Fife) to Dundee about two years ago without notifying the Licensing Authority. The company were seeking approval of the change of base on the grounds that they no longer owned the Gateside Garage and that all their traffic was to and from Dundee, where they were based. It was stated that the company's directors were Miss Morag Taylor arid Mr.' James Allison jun., whose fathers were the directors of Allison's Transport
(Contracts), Ltd., Dundee. Witnesses said Gateside vehicles were maintained at Allison's depot.
Granting the application, Mr. Robertson said the company's smallest vehicle would be suspended from June 22 to July 20 because of the irregularity. He did not consider a heavier penalty was necessary in view of the fact that the company's traffic had come mainly from Dundee for a number of years.
QUARRIES' TIPPER NEEDS MET
"J HAVE had a feeling for some time I I have granted sufficient vehicles to meet the need of the quarries," said Mr. S. W. Nelson, Western Licensing Authority, on Monday. Mr. A. R. Duckett, West Huntspill, Somerset, sought a B licence for a tipper to be acquired to carry guarry materials within 150 Miles. It was submitted for Messrs. F. J. Wynn that they had vehicles standing idle from time to time and that in these circumstances a grant to Mr. Duckett would be unfair. This was accepted by Mr. Nelson and he refused the application, although he stated that he admired Mr. Duckett, a lorry driver for the past 'six years, for trying to improve his position.
REVOCATION CASE ADJOURNED NfiR. W. B. OVENDEN, of Bury, was IVI taken ill last Sunday and was unable to appear before the North Western Licensing Authority on Monday to show cause why a B licence should not be suspended or revoked. The inquiry was adjourned after the court had waited half an hour for Mr. Ovenden to appear.
No Period Returns on Excursions
/TOR.E vehicles have been granted by .1.VI the North Western Traffic Commissioners to Wigan coach operators to cope with holiday traffic to Wales. It had been submitted at the hearing (The Commercial Motor, February 14) that some Wigan residents did not take their holidays in Wales because of inadequate road facilities. The Commissioners have allowed Messrs. E. and T. Eaves, St. Helens Industrial Co-operative, Ltd., Gray Bros. (Wigan), Ltd.. Stringfellow Bros., Ltd., Walls Motor Tours, Ltd., and T. Unsworth and Sons (Wigan), Ltd., an extra vehicle each, and Wm. Liptrot (Coaches), Ltd., two, but have refused the applications of W. Sirnm and Sons, Ltd., Liptrot Bros., Ltd., and Lancashire United Transport, Ltd.
The companies wished to offer period returns to Rhyl and Llandudno, but the
Commissioners were not satisfied that a sufficient case was made out to warrant "the exceptional course" of including period-return operations under excursion and tour licences. In the part of the decision concerning T. Unsworth and Sons, they stated that it was undesirable, if not illegal, for passengers from Wigan going to the Isle of Man to be conveyed to Liverpool for the purpose of embarkation and charged the day excursion fare. This practice must stop.
LIVERPOOL TRAFFIC DOWN 6.66%
LIVERPOOL'S municipal bus traffic I—, last year dropped by 6.66 per cent. below the previous year's figure. The buses carried 354m. passengers. For the first time in the transport department's history revenue exceeded £6m.
The profit of £37,000 was double that of the previous year. The department's 1,241 buses produced a revenue of
£6,497,803. Mainly because of the closing of the overhead railway, bus mileage increased by 1m. Mr. W. M. Hall, general manager. says in his annual report that if the latest wage claim made by the unions were granted in full, expenditure would be increased by more than £175,000 a year. Efforts are being tpade to prune unremunerative routes, to attract new passengers and recover lost traffic. The future bus fleet will be based on three models.