Caught Napping
Page 52
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Bird's Eye View By The Hawk
I MAKE no apology for referring again this week to Wallace Arnold (Tours), Ltd., because everything they do nowadays seems to be news and the way in which they tease the British Transport Commission amuses me greatly.
Their application to the Yorkshire Traffic Commissioners for an express service from Leeds and Knottingley to Llandudno (reported in The Commercial Motor last week) raises a piquant question, The West Yorkshire Road Car Co., Ltd., who objected on behalf of the Northern Pool operators, run a service from Leeds and Bradford to Manchester, where they link up with the North Western Road Car service to Llandudno.
The Commissioners have in the past shown that they do not like linking and—I strongly suspect through railway pressure— the B.T.C.-owned West Yorkshire company have refrained from asking for a direct service to Llandudno. So an enterprising independent operator steps in and may lift the prize from under the Commission's noses.
The little dog laughed to see such fun.
Slow in Transmission
DEING designed to interest the general public, last week's broadcast discussion on delays to goods in transit contained little to hold the transport man's attention. The problem was stated in wide terms and it was left to Mr. E. G. Whitaker, transport adviser to Unilever, Ltd., to suggest immediate practical measures to solve it. He urged the quicker turnround of vehicles to reduce congestion on the streets.
Indeed, it was Mr. Whitaker who held the programme together. On behalf of hauliers, Mr. A. R. Butt, speaking to a well-prepared brief, drove home some excellent propaganda points, .emphasized with his fist on the table. He stung Mr. Pickford, who spoke for the railways, with references to rail subsidies, but otherwise the discussion was pedestrian. My taste runs to a little more lire.
Out of Tune
THE burly police constable was proudly demonstrating the seeming accuracy of the radar equipment that is now in use in London to detect speeding offences.
" You can easily check the instrument with this set of tuning forks," he said, and produced a huge piece of pronged ironmongery with "60 m.p.h." impressed on it.
" All you do is to strike the fork and see the vibrations register 60 m.p.h. on the dial of the speedmeter," the constable assured me, and gave the fork a whack on a rubber block. The needle hardly quivered. A little redder in the neck, the constable gave the fork a thump and, although a heavenly note was produced, only 30 m.p.h. registered. Before the constable could do either himself or the instrument some grave damage, a superintendent tried his hand and eventually registered 60 m.p.h., whereupon the proceedings hastily closed.
Sore Point
A N unreliable informant tells me that at a symposium on "Metallurgical Aspects of Semi-conductors," to be held in Birmingham. he is going to present a paper dealing with drivers of one-man buses who are afflicted by the needle.