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Alpine-type Coach Bodies
ANOTABLE feature of many coach bodies mounted on vehicles operating abroad is the great amount of clear vision allowed in their superstructure. This is, of course, particularly useful in mountainous areas, for otherwise passengers would be debarred from seeing the heights without craning ,their heads out of the windows—a risky procedure on narrow roads.
Coaches affording this facility have become known on the Continent as Alpine models. Some British bodybuilders are following this example and, in six new Bedford Super Vega coaches supplied recently to Charles Rickards, Ltd., by Duple Motor Bodies, Ltd., the bodies have a glazed area of 61 per cent. above the waist. Incidentally, they are most ,handsome and well finished bodies.
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Vehicle Park as a Grandstand
ABOUT 1,000 people blessed the foresight of Park
Developments, Ltd., for that company's arrangement with Thomas Cook and Son, Ltd., by which they could view, from a large parking site, Brewer's Quay, the homecoming of H.M. Queen Elizabeth H.
Some 17 open-top double-deck buses were drawn up on the quayside immediately facing the moored royal yacht. The quay is adjacent to Tower Pier and the visitors were also able to see H.M. The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret board their launch, and Sir Winston Churchill return from the " Britannia."
Brewer's Quay is, in ordinary times, an excellent parking place with ample space for all classes of vehicle.
Safety Reminders To Lucas Workers
AN excellent contribution to road safety in Birming
ham is being made by Joseph Lucas, Ltd. Every day at 12.30 p.m. and 6 p.m., workers from the Great King_Street, Hockley, factory rush into the road to board waiting buses. During these periods, a special record plays to them through loudspeakers. First two loud blasts of a motor horn come "over the air," followed by a number of safety slogans which have been selected in consultation with the Birmingham Accident Prevention Council.
The phrases from the record, following the horn blasts, are as follows: "Attention please. As you leave the works watch that traffic. Go easy and be careful. Stop at the kerb and look both ways. Be very careful when approaching the road. Don't take risks, take care. Better road behaviour please."
The idea is at present experimental, but if it proves satisfactory, it may be tried out at other factories.
Hall Day at the Sea
ONE of the big events of the coming coaching season will be when Hall and Co., Ltd., Victoria Wharf, Croydon, take 1,600 lorry drivers and \Aar& men to Margate for the day. They will travel in 50
coaches and in the leading vehicle will be Mr. Joseph Hall, 86-year-old chairman of the company, of which Mr. J. W. Taylor, M.I.Mech.E., M.I.R.T.E., is the transport engineer.
Special attractions of the trip will be visits to the Dreamland amusement park, which has been booked for the whole day by the company, and to a theatre in the evening.
Glass Plastic Panels for Buses
FRONT and rear panels for bus bodies being built
for the British Electric Traction Co., Ltd., by Saunders-Roe are now produced in resin-bonded fibreglass. This follows experiments which have been referred to previously in this journal. The material is extremely strong and in a demonstration of how a repair could be effected it took repeated and heavy blows with a hammer to make a hole for this purpose in such a panel.
The repair is done by a building-up process, using dry fibreglass in layer form with a minimum of the liquid plastic. This process takes only a few minutes and after drying the surface is smoothed ready for painting. Such a " patch " becomes part of the main panel with the same strength as the original material.