News and Comment.
Page 4
Page 5
Page 7
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Newsagents' and subscribers' orders for this journal are more than double those for all similar journals combined : in addition, we post many thousand copies of special issues.
Our second illustrated report on the Berlin Motor show, and our accounts of the Liverpool, Manchester, and Newcastle exhibitions were concluded last week.
The Marquis of Londonderry's Seaham Harbour Engine Works have secured an order for six of their standard five-ton steam wagons from the NorthEastern Railway Company after an exhaustive trial extending over a period of more than seven months.
Owners of commercial motors who desire to have by them a concise and tersely-written work, which embraces the whole of the Acts and Orders connected with all classes of road locomotives, should not fail to obtain a copy of the " Law of Mechanical Traction on Highways," by Messrs. Montague Barlow and V. Joynson Hicks. This book has recently been issued by Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Limited, price 8s. 6d. net, and we commend it to our readers as the most reliable treatise of the kind that has yet appeared. It is comprehensive, yet no unnecessary paragraphs mar its pages, whilst the peculiarly instructive character of the notes and quoted cases renders it invaluable for reference. Mr. Joynson Hicks' wide experience as solicitor to the London General Omni bus Company and to the National Traction Engine Owners' and Users' Association has been turned to no better pur pose than the producton of this standard book of legal reference which is now available for the assistance and guidance of all users.
We are informed that good business resulted at Liverpool for the exhibitors of commercial and other motors : this Show merits greater support from makers of utiiity vehicles.
The Car and General Insurance Corporation, Limited, has added to its ever-spreading departments one dealing with fidelity guarantees, under a competent assistant to Mr. Frederick Thoreshy, the (ieneral Manager.
We understand that the Scottish Motor Engineering Company, Limited, has found it necessary to open a depot in Italy, where an entire line of its manufactures will be kept. The branch is situated at to, Via S. Secondo, Turin, and will be conducted by Mr. Alessandro Casasco.
The Hull City Garage, Limited, has been registered with a capital of .4:to,000 iii ,4;,5 shares, to acquire the business carried on in North Street, Hull, under the style of the City Garage. The first directors are Col. A. K. llibb, j .P. (chairman), Messrs, A. J. Atkinson, J. M. Newall, A. Reckitt, E. S. Wade, J.P., and G. W. T. Wade, the latter being managing director. The company is now erecting an up-to-date and commodious garage on the Beverley Road.
The question of purchasing a motor for haulage purposes was brought up at the recent meeting of the Bath Surveying Committee, it being felt by the Finance Committee that the matter should again be considered, as it had been stated that the motor would pay for itself in two years. In Bath the idea was to employ the motor for hauling heavy material on the hills. A resolution that the sub-committee be asked to report as to the desirability of purchasing a motor for haulage purposes was adopted.
The effect of heavy motor traffic on the main roads of Cheshire was the chief subject of discussion at the meeting of the Cheshire County Council on the 8th instant. The Council are about to spend about £2,00n, owing, it is alleged, to this heavy traffic. The Council haying been warned that, if steps were taken to prevent the use of heavy motors, there might be a risk of stopping large works and throwing whole places out of employment, it was decided to defer further consideration of the matter till the next meeting of the Main Roads Committee or of the Council.
An interesting letter from Mr. T_ Murata, the managing director of the " Gaiho Sha " of Tokio, in reference to our Japanese supplement of November 3oth last, appears on our correspondence page this week.
We give the first and principal instalment of the address which was delivered by Colonel R. E. Crompton,. C.B., R.E., chairman of the Motor Van and Wagon Users' Association, on Wednesday evening of last week, at the inaugural meeting of the London section of the Automobile and Cycle Engineers' Institute.
The Automobile Club's tyre trials appear to have fallen as flat as the oftpostponed van trials, and this serious lack of appreciation for the Club's efforts is a fact which must cause the Expert and Technical Committee of the Club no small amount of perturbation. If any more competitions are announced with practically no response from those who should be most willing to support them, the prestige and reputation of the Automobile Club as an institution for the encouragement of the industry must be seriously impaired. Two such failures as have been experienced in connection with the projected organisation of the van trials last year, and the contemplated tyre trials, should furnish a pretty warmtheme for discussion by the members of the new committee.
From April x5th to t8th, both inclusive, an International Automobile Exhibition will be held at Prague, in the Industrial Palace, Royal Tiergarten, under the auspices of the Automobilistu and the Cesky Klub Motocyclistu, from which two bodies members have been selected to form the executive committee; there will be a commercial section.
Lric Trame.ars versus Motor
The Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company, Limited, has to be added to the list of subscribers to the foundation fund of the British Empire Motor Trades Alliance, and the contribution in question amounts to 20 guineas.
The Highways Committee of the Westminster City Council has recommended the purchase of a 5-ton Municipal wagon, with interchangeable water-tank body, from the Lancashire Steam Motor Company, Limited.
The Coulthard five-ton lorry, which was exhibited at the Manchester Show, has been sold to the East Lancashire and Manchester Carrying Company, Limited, of Prudential Buildings, Union Street, Oldham. A number of Coulthard wagons will shortly be put in service between Manchester, Oldham, and Burnley. Mr. L. Aspinall is the secretary.
We hear that business is still being carried on in the works of Messrs. Garrett, Smith and Company, at Magdeburg and Buckau, notwithstanding the firm's declaration c.f bankruptcy last October. Negotiations for the re-construction of the company have as vet failed to produce any result. A number of machines have been sold since October, but the present stock is valued at over £66,000.
Arrangements are now being made for a motor goods delivery service between Chichester and the outlying villages. Nearly thirty carriers visit the town regularly, many of them daily, and the business of these relics of the past will certainly be threatened by the new order of things. It is hoped that a motorbus service between Chichester and Bognor and another to Selsey may be instituted.
The illustration of" Eclipse" roof glazing, the patents for which are owned by Mellowes and Company, Limited, of Sheffield, and 28, Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W., which was published in our last issue, facing page 463, depicted the foundry of Marshall Sons and Company, Limited, at Gainsborough. An examination of the roof in question discloses the fact that one side consists of Mellowes' "Wood Bar" glazing, whilst the other is the company's " Eclipse " patent glazing. The orders which Mellowes and Company, Limited, at present has in hand for its several types of glazing promise to exceed the previous high record of close upon 2,000,000 feet fixed in one year.
The acting-secretaryof the Tokio Chamber of Commerce, Mr. J. Shiraishi, in acknowledging the receipt of outJapanese Supplement, advises us that the contents have created great interest in the reading-room of the Chamber.
The recent decision of Mr. Cecil Chapman, at the Tower Bridge Police-court, in the case where the South Metropolitan Gas Company was summoned by the Excise authorities for keeping a carriage without a license, argues that the use of a pleasure car for business purposes will not be permitted free of the Inland Revenue duty unless the body-work and upholstery are such that no pleasure could possibly be obtained by travelling in the car.
Mr. Claude Johnson, who is now joint manager of Messrs. C. S. Rolls and Company, in the course of his lecture before the Society of Arts last week, said : " The proud position which this country now holds in connection with motor vehicles for heavy traffic is undoubtedly largely due to the energetic action of the Liverpool Self-Propelled Traffic Association, which, in May, 1898, held most useful heavy vehicle trials." Mr. Johnson's address, which is a careful survey of the history of motorism from the year 1885 to date, is given in extenso in the current number of the ' Journal of the Society of Arts" (Bell and Sons, Portugal Street, price 6d.)
The British Empire Motor Trades Alliance has circulated an instructive extract from the Toronto " Monetary Times," which points out how a Canadian trade representativ, who came to England on a buying mission, failed to secure a good reception in the majority of cases. The writer continues by pointing out that, as a rule, the visitor in question could no more get to see the principal than any ordinary tourist visitor to St. Paul's could get to see the Dean and Chapter. Whether this criticism is deserved depends, of course, upon the standing and intentions of the representative ; the strictures cannot apply to the motor industry.
Vienna's motorbus traffic will be opened shortlyviili three petrol-driven vehicles, for which the city voted i; The line will connect Vienna with the suburb of KaiserEbersdorf, as previously stated in our columns.
The directors of the London General Omnibus Company, Limited, will shortly make a further capital issue in the form of 5 per cent, cumulative preference shares, in order to increase their stock of motor omnibuses. The 1.ondon Road Car Company, Limited, took this step early in January of last year, which places it so much ahead.
The Provincial Motor Bus and Traction Company, Limited, issued its prospectus last week and asked the public to subscribe for 300,000 ordinary shares of Li each. This Company will probably find a satisfactory revenue during the summer months, but we anticipate a very sorry' financial outlook from many quarters during the winter.
The Bath Electric Tramways, Limited, started running a service of Milnes-Daimler omnibuses up and down the famous Lansdown Hill on the ei.th instant. The delay in inaugurating this particular service has been due to the caution on the part of the directors of the company, who waited to have an extra brake fitted on each vehicle.
An interesting series of letters appears in recent issues of the " Daily Express," the outcome of that contributed by Mr. Richard Pybus on the subject of " Motorbus Dangers." In these are discussed the probable happenings in the case where a driver were to take a fit while on the road. In such an extreme case it is quite possible that an accident would take place, and we fear that the various remedies suggested would hardly have the desired effect. Several correspondents seem to labour under a delusion that if the driver's foot left the clutch pedal the bus would be brought to a standstill, when quite the opposite effect would be produced. It is clear, also, that the proposed arrangement of a chain to be operated from the interior of the bus could not be used in sufficient time to avert a catastrophe in the event of the driver falling from his place. The way on the vehicle would be sufficient, were the steering gear abandoned, to carry it over the kerb in a second. What would happen if the driver of a horse-bus fell from his seat?
Berlin Tramways Company Buys Omnibuses. -Berlin possesses perhaps the best electric tramway system in the world, and the cheapest. The ramifications of lines of the " Grosse Berliner Strassenbahn-Gesellschaft," familiarly referred to as "die Grosse," extend all over the city, to such an extent, in fact, that a critic not inaptly compared Berlin to a vast shunting-station. Still, shunting
•
station or not, I he network of rails, and the rapid and Frequent service of cars, fall short of the ever-swelling volume of traffic ; gaps there are which require filling up. The work done by " die Grosse," and the three suburban companies allied with it, may be judged from figures supplied by a Berlin statistician, who calculates that, in 1905, the cars of all four companies covered a distance of 95,500,000 kilometres, or some sixty million miles, the mileage separating our planet from Mercury, when lying in one axis to the sun ! Of the total mileage, " die Grosse " could claim about 85 per cent. At the sitting of the Supervisory Board on the 13th inst., when a dividend of 71 per cent. (against 74 per cent. in the preceding twelve months) was declared, the directors proposed that the shareholders' consent should be obtained to empower the company to run motorbuses to supplement its existingservice. The proposa' has come upon Berliners as a positive surprise, although, at the end of January, 4' THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR had been apprised of the project. It is hardly necessary to add that to the mass of the population an early realisation of this supplementary scheme will be heartily welcomed. Naturally, " die Grosse " does not contemplate the project merely from the public's point of view ; it reckons with competition from the Berlin General Omnibus Co., which, as readers know, has begun to motorise its lines, and intends fighting it with like weapons. We are advised that no less than one hundred omnibuses are required. Line I connects the Potsdamerstrasse with the Ktillnischer Fischmarkt, via Viktoriastrasse, Mohrenstrasse, and Franziisischestrasse. Line II will bind the fashionable Viktoria Luisenplatz, -on the confines of the suburb of Schoneberg, with the Strausbergerplatz, and pass through Nollendorfplatz, Viktoriastrasse, Voss-strasse, Kronenstrasse, Markgrafenstrasse, Donhoffsplatz, Kommandantenstrasse, Griinstrasse, Wallstrasse, Kaisenbriicke, and Blumenstrasse. Line III will stretch from north-west to south-west (an urgently-needed connection) and bring Moabit in touch with the Schlesisches Thor, via Hansaplatz, the Tiergarten, Unter den Linden, Schlossplatz, Ross-strasse, Dresdenerstrasse, Annenstrasse, and Wrangelstrasse. Line IV will run from north to south, the termini being Statiner Bahrirmf and Viktoriapark, the buses travelling along the north-western section of the Friedrichstrasse, then down Karlstrasse to the Wilhelmstrasse, Anhaltstrasse, Ktinigg-riitzerstrasse, and Grossbeerenstrasse. Line V will connect Wedding, still further north, with the south-eastern suburb of Rixdorf (like Wedding, a working-class district), via the Opernplatz, Dresdenerstrasse, Kottbuser Thor, Hermannstrasse, and Berlinerstrasse. We understand that the vehicles are to be thoroughly up-to-date in fittings and construction.