LAYING AND LIFTING TRACK
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QEEN in an accompanying photograph l•-•7 is Saro recoverable trackway being laid on marshland near Llanddeiniolen. Caernarvonshire, last week in a demonstration arranged by the Central Electricity Generating Board (as reported in The Commercial Motor, July 17). With a spool and turntable (necessary for the 11-ft.-wide trackway to be carried sideways on the highway and then swivelled through 91:1*. ready for laying, as shown here) 165 ft. was laid in five minutes.
Enough trackway is unwound by the driver's mate to reach . the rear wheels and the rest is unwound by the vehicle simply reversing on to the trackway; taking it up again on to the spool must be done manually, however, and a fiveman crew is necessary for a short time.
Saro (Anglesey) Ltd.. of Beaurnaris. Anglesey, has just been granted permission by the War Office to sell the trackway to commercial users. Price. is approximately £13 per foot run: small users could build slabs made up with several 9-in, planks of the trackway and then lay by hand on site. Planksare joined by slide-in mortice-and-tenon-like jointing. In the picture a Bedford 4 x 4 has been used to carry the clamped-on spool but any platform vehicle with adequate carrying capacity may be used.
The CE.G.B. staged the demonstration for 74 contractors specializing in pylon sites. Board members stressed the need for speed with the minimum damage to land and crops, but some contractors present said the C.E.G.B. would have to specify such special equipment when calling for tenders .before contractors would invest the necessary capital for equipment which might be needed for only .30 per cent of the sites worked. The growing reluctance of landowners to let their land be used when they have seen the damage done in building pylons on . other land, and rising compensation claims, may bring this about.