NELSON'S FLEET.
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Covering 100,000 miles per annum in Distributing London's Meat Supply.
• NE OF THE foundations of the genius of 0 . Admiral ' Nelson was his appreciation of the outstanding value in naval warfare of a " fleetin-being," and, irresistibly, memories of Admiral Mahan's "Life of Nelson," and of Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge's articles on "Sea-power," kept coming toenind on one glorious summer's -day a week or so ago which was spent in and amongst Nelson's fleet in its garage down Peckham way, our pilot (to pursue the metaphor) being Mr. E. Percy Beavan.
For here was a veritable example of an organization expressly and solely designed to keep a fleet of lorries "in being" always ready, ever reliable, available for the cartage of meat and ther consumables for the British and Argentine Meat Co.,'Ltd., Edward'Nelson and Co., Ltd., being the name of the concern responsible for the upkeep of the fleet.
"We first took up commercial vehicles in 1903," said Mr. Beavan in answer to the first of a hundred questions to be fired at him, "and we now run 12 alto_ gether, carrying out a certain part of the eartage of • the B. and A. Meat Co.
• "Costper ton-mile and absolute reliability of collection and delivery constitute theessence of our relations to the Meat Co., and I can show you my figures • extending over the past 13 or 14 years.
'Horsed vehicles brought the cost of cartage to about is. 4d. per vehicle-mile. With commercial motors 'we got it down to is., then to 8d., in 1907 to 6-1d. and in 1908 I got to the low-water mark and touclied 5id. For two years-1909-1910—it was ad., and then in 1911 it was brought down to 50. Then petrol rose in price and my figures rose to about 6d., in 1914 to 7d., in 1915 to 8d. After that, with wages up 40 per cent. arid other outgoings equally excessive in appearance, the figures form no real guide. . " Yes ; that cost covers running expenses, fuel, oil, repairs, maintenance, rent, rates and taxes of garage premises, and wages and all other expenses of the garage.
"We cover with the fleet well ovea100,000 miles a year, carrying a 2-ton load in one direction and, unfortunately, returning empty invariably. If we could bring back a few loads, our tonnage would work up and our cost per ton-mile would come down, of course. "We tarry meat from the docks to our stores ;,we carry it from one stores to another ; we collect from stores and deliver to railway, and we deliver to the whole of our 100 to 110 shops in the London area— which extends, by the way, from Waltham Crow to Croydon, and from Grays, Essex, to Windsor, taking in Gravesend and Chatham.
"As you surmise, the journeys are mapped out into a regular schedule. On Mondays there are six rounds ; on Tuesdays four rounds and a lot of rail work ; on Wednesdays five rounds ; on Thursdays three rounds (early closing that, sir !), Fridays five rounds, and Saturdays three rounds and considerable rail deliveries.
"Then two cars go up every night taking meat for passenger train journeys. "Should the eonsumption of meat the in any district, we discover the fact from a regular return made by head office of the average requirements over certain periods. Then we put a bigger van on the round.
"Thus, our Chatham journeys are now nearly always with a 4-ton load. "Return loads ? Well, we haven't done all that we might to get them. We are, of course, always out to pick up stuff to bring back, and should welcome any simple and effective scheme. We could bring it all to this depot, and, next morning, deliver it by a van going in the direction of the destination of the goods.
"No, you speak truthfully when you say we lack the advantages accruing to a cartage company or even to a brewery. You see, brewery vans always come back with as bulky a load as they take out. Now, we often go out to Luton to pick up a load of meat-purchased there, and we have to go out empty ; so we Could easily take a load out and deliver it at a low rate to some central depot for distribution. "You ask what our early difficulties were Overloading, air, and then—overloading. Breakdowns, of course, were numerous, but I set to work to cheek and finally to stop this, and I'm glad to realize I'm at the end of that trouble.
"Before we go and see the cars you will see •here haw I keep my records on a card-inclexing system. I record the 'Stores inwards,' the 'Stores outwards,' and the 'Oar repairs.'
" We issue renewal parts on garage order forms, c45 and each repair job is shown on a time sheet for transfer of details to the index cards.
" On the Daily journey record' the driver notes the time of his arrival at the stmes, the time backed down, the time loaded, anttthe time of leaving, with details of the load and destination, and we accelerate the loading by charging the stores with any detention of a car over an heur for loading or unloading. "It keeps the stores alive to the value of avoiding these unnecessary delays. "We charge an all-round rate for delivery to shops and to rail, and we give a bonus to the drivers for recovering meateloths and boxes. Ah! quite an item that—getting your empties back ! ".Tyre costs you ask about ? We don't buy our tyres outright, but pay so much a mile for each mile run by a tyre.
." Now come and look at the fleet.
"We have seven Milnes-Daimlers, Nos. 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11 and 12. The others are Burfords—Nos. 7, 9, 14, 15 and 16.
"The missing numbers ? No, we need shed no sorrowing tears. Nos. 1 and 2 were Milnes-Daimlers too. No. 1 had hair its day—so far as we were concerned ; and, a neighbouring firm making an offer for the vehicle, we sold it.
"No. 2 had a bad accident and only eontinued its existence in parts on other vehicles, like a onceunited and happy family dismembered and distributed.
"Here are Nos. 3 and 4. These we bought new.
No. 3, as you see, is a 2-tonner, and No. 4 is a 4-tonner. Yes, you could tell a Milnes-Daimler a mile away by its wood torque stays. There were only two of these 4-tonners brought to this country ; the Great Western Railway Co. has the fellow one.
"No. 5 here is a similar type of chassis to the others, being a 2-tonner like No. 3. it went through the Liverpool trials of 1902 or 1903. . 'No. 6 you are asking for. Here it is in this corner. You will see we are dismembering it, for its frame is broken. Its gearbox is already living a second life on another ear, and we are gradually stripping its component parts and putting them into store. "When an engine becomes worn, we replace it with an Aster. This is what we did with No.8. This was an E -type bus chassis, and we re-engined it after two years service. "Nos. 7 and 9 are 2-ton Burfords, and Nos. 14, 15 and 16 are 4-tortners of the same make, bought last year. The original No. 7 was a Canstatt-Daimler 15cwt. chassis. We bought it to do a special kind of work, but it proved too light for the job, so we sold it.
"There was an earlier No. 8 as well, but after three or four years good work it met its -Whterloo—I should say, Trafalgar—in a ditch, and as the cost of effecting repairs would not have been justified, it found its way into stores in a dissembled state.
"No. 9 had also a predecessor. This was a MilnesDaimler, which the previous owner used as a char-abanes for a couple of years. • He told us the front tyres were those delivered with the chassis, and remarked on their good condition. We ran the van for four years and never put new tyres on the front
wheels. Those tyres did somewhere between 70,000 and 80,000 miles. At the end of that time the outside was perished, but the inside was quite soft. They were a source of wonder tornany ! "Nos. 10 and 11 were two 3-tonpers bought 9 years ago. They had the old Canstatt engine and were equipped with bus bodies; .We bought them in Newcastle, and were sending them to Buenos Ayres, for use on the estates, when an official of the company took a fancy to them and stopped them when they got to Liverpool, panelled the bodies and used them for carrying. But they were always in trouble there. I managed to get them for my garage, overcame the troubles, and got about 11,000 miles out of each in the first year on an outlay for running repairs of 27 10s. each at most, plus tyres. "So that completes the fleet. Oh; number 13? No, there is no number 13. No, not superstitious in the slightest degree nor are the drivers, bit—well, you see--anyhow, the men, when we were buying a new -car after number 12, pointed out that number /4 was quite a good number, -so we put that on. . "The behaviour of the Burfords ? Oh, quite good. Take running repairs. No. 14 from May to, December, 1916, cost 13s. ; No. 15 from July to December entailed an expense of 2s. 4d. ; and No. 16 in the same period cost 4s. ld.—chief item a new plug ! " You know •how we replace the Ca.nstatt engines as they wear out by Asters. Well we have put ball bearings through all our gearboxes, and we make Our own tubular radiators; and carry out all our own repairs and replacements, except gearcutting. "We find that rough war-time ' road surfaces rattle bolts and nuts off and now and again we lose an axle cap, but the mere fact that such trifles become observed is, in itself, evidence of the extraordinary reliability of the motor vehicle in a sustained programme ofdelivery such as ours. "At night time our plant is at work making an important item of munitions, but about that, of course, you can•say nothing. "On. the whole, we have very little mechanical trouble., mainly due to the excellence of the driving, the prevention of overloading, and the skilful supervision and high quality of the workmanship that we get from our fitters. • "Our foreman has been with us 14 years; and all -our men have been or had been (four of them have joined up) with us for a number of years.
"As you say, it is a great pleasure when your men take a pride in their work as ours do. They are the main factors in keeping our fleet 'in being.'"