Motor Omnibuses—A Note of Caution.
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By Henry Sturmey.
We have been hearing a good deal about motor omnibuses lately, and we are likely to hear more of them. Little more than 12 months ago, however, no one would look al them, and few people were prepared to discuss the matter seriously. Then came some judicious " beoming " o! the idea in the daily Press, and, the public having been nicely worked up to a receptive point, a motor omnibus company was launched, with the result that the shares offered were more than applied for, and the continued talk of the enormous business to be done with motorbuses caused other companies—which were less successful in their appeal to the public—to come out in quick succession. These concerns having been formed with the object of running omnibuses on the public streets, their first consideration was, naturally, to get omnibuses to run, and they placed their orders at once with those firms who were in a position to deal with them and to supply, But, owing to causes which need not be entered into here, the firms who had given any serious attention to this branch of the mo:cntrade, and who were in a position to make delivery of standardised chassis of a tested character, could be numbered on the fingers of one hand. Unfortunately, they were most of them foreign, but that is another detail which need not be dealt with here. Anyway, the net result was that these fortunate firms very quickly found themselves in the possession of orders which it would take them months, and in some cases years, to execute, whilst, owing to the railway companies and th.2 existing horsed-omnibus companies, as well as individual and local concerns all over the country, at the same time desiring to enter into the competition, the tension upon the established motor omnibus builders soon became intense. To so great an extent has this occurred that, for many months past, it has been an impossibility to secure even promise of delivery of
ANY OMNIBUS WITII A NAME TO IT
much inside of a twelvemonth. The natural result has been that operating firms, finding their orders refused where they would have preferred to have placed them, sought supplies elsewhere, and the existing motorcar builders in all parts of the country, and others who had had no experience whatever in the motor industry, announced their willingness to undertake motor omnibus construction, and to accept the orders offered.
This is where the danger comes in. The motor omnibus problem is probably, without exception, the most difficult in the trade for the manufacturer. A private user of a pleasure vehicle, or even a private user of a trade wagon, can meet with trouble and delay on the road with comparative equanimity, and little harm is done thereby, but a motor omnibus stands on quite a different footing. In its reliability it must be complete. Constant stoppages through machinery troubles would very quickly ruin the chances of any motorbus service, and such reliability can only be obtained in that most expensive school—experience. And the gaining of experience in this matter takes time, which many of the newer firms who have recently entered the motor construction field have not had. The result of it k that many desiring to enter the field of omnibus running have placed, are placing, and will place orders with firms who have, perhaps, never built an omnibus at all, or who, if they have done so, have built but one or two, and have had little or no extended experience with them. The bus companies will, in time, obtain delivery of these vehicles which, even though they may be constructed by firms who have had experience in the construction of pleasure cars, can only be looked upon as more or less experimental, and the motor omnibus runners will, therefore, be doing the experimental work for the builders in their novitiate, and doing it, too, under the most unfavourable circumstancesi.e., in actual work.
liERE LIES A MENACE
to the continued prosperity of the motor omnibus business. These first cars of inexperienced makers must, in a very large proportion of cases, prove more or less unsatisfactory in the long run, and the finding out of their weak points in actual public service will, to a certain extent, discredit the motor omnibus movement. It may very likely also give it a reputation for unreliability, which is undeserved, and, further than this, the constant failure of parts and repairs necessary will, as time goes on, seriously affect the profit-making possibilities of the companies engaged. If one or two concerns, through this cause or their own inexperience in looking after their cars and organising their .ervices, should come to grief or fail to make profits, the story will go round, as it has gone before in connection with pleasure car construction, that " there is no money in motor omnibuses," and a useful and valuable movement may receive a serious check, which may set it back seriously. I look upon the hurried formation of these motor omnibus companies, and the sudden rushing of new construction firms into the motor omnibus field, with no great favour. Progress was being made before, slowly, it is true, but still progress, and that progress was about keeping pace with production, and with the degree of mechanical perfection attained by the makers. I still look upon motor omnibus companies as none too desirable financial factors, in spite of the ro per cent, interim dividend declared by the premier company of the new school—a purely "motored " company—after six months' work, and concerning this I may say that, when the balance-sheet at the end of the year comes to he produced, I very much question if any more dividend will be paid, if, indeed, that already distributed will not then be found to have been more than has been earned by the few omnibuses which the company has been able to run.