Bird's Eye View
Page 39
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A DEMONSTRATION I attended recently showed how 1—k a special type of safety kerb could prevent vehicles running off the road. The kerb in question was the EllisTrier Safety Kerb, and the demonstration took place at the Dunlop test track.
This concrete kerb, patented and handled in this country by John Ellis and Sons Ltd., of Leicester, was given a pretty rough trial. A Seddon 8-ton tipper, travelling at speeds of up to 25 m.p.h., was driven into a sample stretch of it at an angle of 20'. The driver was able to get the near-side wheels over the kerb shoulder, but as the off-side wheels made contact with it movement off the road was promptly arrested. A useful-looking device!
Odd Definitions
" IF you operate to places irregularly, you are a tramp. I If you do it regularly, then you are a triangular trunk operator...
Mr. Samuel Gibbon addressing the Transport. Tribunal receniiy.
A Bad Dream!
HAVE you ever had that bad dream that you answered
an advertisement for a job and found it to be your own ? So have I. A driver for a haulage firm in North Lincolnshire did this very thing just recently. I-le got the job—and the extra pound a week that went with it. Less fortunate souls would have got the sack
Who is Albert Ogg?
THE Transport Ferry Service has just published a delight' ful piece of advertising matter in the form of a colourful, illustrated booklet entitled "The double life of Albert Ogg ". The first part follows "Albert Ogg" and his vehicle through from a factory "up country ", down the motorway to Tilbury, across one of the T.F.S. ferries and on to a Continental destination.
Albert is then, apparently, left to his own devices in Hamburg (lucky Albert), and the booklet goes on to give
an alphabetical pictorial guide to some of the larger -towns on the Continent, giving such information as population, places to stay, industries, currency, places to see and dishes to eat.
1, for one, am glad that Albert Ogg's real identity is kept a secret. For after reading the title and seeing some of the plush places and expensive dishes that he can imbibe in, his missus might well be worried about her Albert's trips abroad.
In Praise of B.B.S.
AS far as 1 can make out. B.R.S. (Parcels) Southern Area are a go-ahead team. There was a certain amount of doubt expressed in official circles when it was first announced that their Margate depot was to be closed and a new depot opened at Canterbury to cater for both towns, so avoiding transhipping in London. But everyone, including the forthright Area Licensing Authority, Mr. H. I. Thom, seemed to be pleased with the result when the opening ceremony was performed recently,.
Just before he cut the tape (white not red) Mr. Thom spoke in praise of B.R.S. He said that haulage in the country had been in a state of flux—but B.R.S. had come through extremely well and had better reason for confidence than any other haulier in the country.
Spore Show
NOT much of a gardener by nature this journal's assistant editor finds that he's nevertheless been doing some rare cultivation. Alongside the driving seat of his car, a fine specimen of coprinus atramentarius has been sprouting ;ix inches high from the (perennially damp) underfelt below the earpet; it has succumbed now to the inevitable wear and tear of a (fast-moving, he says) journalist.
Coprinus thingamabob? Oh yes. Ink-cap, fungus, edible. The ink-cap's rather appropriate, and the last I heard be was thinking of going in for car-mushrooming in a big way. Any fungus in your cab?