Bigger Spending On Snow Clearance
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IT has always been something of a joke that falls of snow which by the standards of many countries are only moderate, are followed in Great Britain by reports of chaos on the roads, of villages cut off and receiving emergency supplies, of demands for better equipment, and so on. The story is always the same. And it is due mainly to one thing only—never enough equipment available for use to keep roads clear.
To be honest, it would be unreasonable to expect vast sums of money to be spent to ensure that no inconvenience at all shall occur on the very few occasions when in normal winters snow causes trouble. But with the experience of the severity of last winter and the prospect, say the forecasters, of more like it in the future, steps are now being taken to see that the chaos will never be so bad again.
As announced in The Commercial Motor of November 1, £6m. is to be spent over the next few years on a programme aimed at improving winter maintenance on 4,000 miles of the 6,400 miles of trunk road in the U.K. Most of this will be for salting/gritting vehicles; the rest will be spent on expanding and modernizing the Ministry of Transport's national reserve of rotary snow ploughs, buying larger stocks of ancillary equipment, improving depots and the possible setting up of a second maintenance depot in the north.
The roads chosen for the programme fall into three categories; those trunk roads which parallel future motorways, those which are to be comprehensively improved, and trunk roads which deserve priority because they form the chief means of communication with a particular area of the country, or carry a high volume of traffic, or serve as connecting links between other high priority routes.
There is not the space here to list all the roads involved, but, as examples, the Al is to receive priority and trunk roads in the south west of England which will be catered for are: A4, London to Bristol; A38, Worcester to Plymouth; A30/A303, London to Penzance; A40, London to South Wales; A30/A33, London to Southampton; A3, London to Portsmouth; A33/A31, Southampton to Bournemouth; A27, Southampton to c46 Brighton; and A34, Oxford to Southampton.
Because experience last winter confirmed that standards applied to motoirways were right—there was at least one carriageway in each direction open to traffic on every one at all times—the programmes will be directed at giving similar attention to the roads selected. The vehicles to be used-240 Bedford 5.5tonners and 160 Atkinson I l.5-tonnerswill be the same as those already in use on motorways for salting, gritting and so on. The Bedfords will be based at 10-rnile intervals with an Atkinson in place of a Bedford every 30 miles.
The main use of the vehicles will be to spread grit and salt, and with the accent on salt, which is considered better for a number of reasons. It prevents icing of the road surface, it will remove light snowfalls, it makes ploughing of deeper snow easier because it prevents the snow sticking to the road and eliminates the packed snow and ice which otherwise remains after ploughing. In addition, it does not damage windscreens when thrown up by the passage of vehicles. Both types of vehicle to be used are built to the Ministry of Transport's specification, the Bedfords being 4 x 4 chassis modified by Chassis Developments Ltd., of Luton, whilst the Atkinsons are 6 x 6 chassis specially built by Atkinson Vehicles Ltd. Hopper bodies with capacities of 5-5 tons and 11.5 tons of salt respectively, and spreading equipment both supplied by Atkinsons of Clitheroe Ltd., are fitted and there is provision for fitting snow ploughs supplied by J. B. Howie Ltd., of Cheltenham.
The most important feature of the vehicles and their equipment is the ability to spread salt evenly at rates as low as 0.5 oz. per sq. yd. at road speeds 1 between 25 and 30 m.p.h. They can al! be used as snow ploughs at the san speeds in suitable conditions. Salt is fi to the spreading equipment by a floi belt running the full length of the cent of the floor, the speed being linked to ti road speed of the vehicle. The salt brought to the front end of the body I the belt and dropped into a transver feeding scroll which is divided at i centre, and by means of rightand lei hand worms the salt is carried outside tl chassis side members on to either or bo of the spinner discs which are mounti forward of the rear wheels. A ga mechanism controls the amount of sz fed to the scroll.
The speed of the spinner discs is co trolled by a variable-flow valve and by combination of gate setting and spinn speed it is possible to spread evenly ov 24 ft. or 36 ft. carriageways quite indepe dently of road speed. Asymmetric sprea ing is also possible so that salt can 1 spread evenly over the full width of 24-ft. carriageway, regardless of whi. lane the vehicle is travelling in.
Protection against corrosior
A great deal of attention has been pa in the design of the vehicles to providi; protection against corrosion and seizu of working parts through the . action the salt continually thrown up when t vehicles are in use. Special attention h also been paid to brake mechanisms a; moulded reinforced plastics " labryntf seals are fitted between the brake dm rim and back plate where the entry salt has in the past been found to cat a great deal of trouble. Additional gret ing points are also provided, the princij in this respect being that a grease po; is provided for every moving part—a because frequent greasing is consider essential, the grease points are led panels at convenient places high up the chassis. All zinc-base or aluminit parts are painted with chlorinated rublr paint and all electrical terminals, cal entries, junction boxes and other cc nections are protected by a strippal P.V.C. coating of a special type. T Twenty of the special vehicles have ready been supplied for use on Al and is expected that this winter a further I will be in service to cover other impornt routes, including A4 and A38 of ose quoted as being on the list for the uth west. The Ministry hope to have e 240 Bedfords in use by 1967/68 and e 160 Atkinsons operating by 1968/69. It is not necessarily certain that all the hicks to be supplied will be of exactly e" same design, for a committee—called Winter Maintenance Equipment :velopment Committee — has been rmeti by the Ministry of Transport, e of its objects being the design vehicles and equipment of still greater icienev. An interesting point is that th the efficient spread of salt possible the currently designed vehicles the penditure of salt—which was £2-5m. t year—might be halved. The Cornttee is also to look into the design of hecles which can be put to other uses en not required for winter mainlance.
klthough welcome, the Ministry's plans I do very little to eliminate the chaos :re will be this winter if similar conions as experienced in the last one se. And even when the Ministry plan fully implemented in about five years' te, a great deal will still depend on ; preparations which highway authorii throughout the country have made I now have equipped themselves. One the problems with keeping the roads ar in winter is that there is no one ponsihle for the overall planning of ner maintenance. It would probably impracticable, anyway, to have one son responsible. He would, no doubt, based in London where he would havb intimate knowledge of the problems snow. No, it is undoubtedly better to e county councils and such like ponsible in their own areas, but there Mid he co-ordination and finance from vernnient funds so that the condition roads in a particular area does not vend on the comparative prosperity of incils. It is not logical that councils such as Northumberland, Cumberland and authorities in Scotland should be called upon to spend large sums of money on keeping roads clear for traffic which may be just passing through and not bringing any benefit to the area The full cost of the actual clearance work on trunk roads is, in fact, paid for by the Ministry of Transport, which has direct financial responsibility for these, and on other classified roads grants are paid for the expenditure on this work. But only in recent times has the Ministry supplied the vehicles for this work and until this new plan, the agent authorities have had The capital expenditure for the bulk of the vehicles used on snow clearance, receiving grants to cover their operation under the general maintenance expenditure on the roads.
In depots
Most of the Ministry-owned vehicles have been held in reserve at depots, ready for deployment to areas affected by snow when the need arises. Whilst this sounds fine on paper it is somewhat difficult if the nearest depot is so far away that a return journey of some 200 miles is involved in collecting the clearance equipment—it is said that this can be the case —with the collecting vehicle standing every chance of itself getting stranded because of the conditions.
With the arrangements up to now in mind it is obvious that the Ministry of Transport has decided that it must play a bigger part in keeping trunk roads at least open to traffic in the winter. The immediate prospect, except on the few roads that will be getting the new machines, is not much brighter this year than it has been in the past. The position will still depend on what each particular authority is prepared to do itself, although this dependence will reduce as the £6m. programme is implemented; but even when it is. a lot will still depend on the local highway authorities, if only on the 2,400 miles of trunk roads which arc not included in he scheme.
What is important, however, is the new awareness of the need to do something and to make adequate preparations for snow conditions. The memory of last winter's conditions will take a long time to erase and county councils and others responsible for roads will be better prepared in the future to meet similar conditions. To help them in their planning the Ministry of Transport has carried out a review of the winter maintenance organization in the light of reports from divisional road engineers and discussions with agent authorities and other highway authorities about their experiences last winter.
Although, it is said, great efforts were made by all concerned, there was room for further improvement in the service and various recommendations and suggestions are made for their future planning. A circular sent to highway authorities covers many points, including the best types of equipment, the advantages of using salt, the need to keep adequate supplies of salt, the advantages of radio communication, and so on. A suggestion of particular interest to road users is that convoys of vehicles headed by a snow plough may help to alleviate the likelihood of vehicles having to be abandoned.
Last winter there were many instances of abandoned vehicles — particularly artics—which blocked roads and added to the difficulties. It is suggested that county authorities responsible for roads that are particularly liable to be blocked, should consider in conjunction with the police and the divisional road engineer, as necessary, whether a system of convoys would be practicable and useful on these roads. All highway authorities should have a programme for keeping their roads free of snow and ice, the report says, and it is recommended that this should be based in general on the status of the road in accordance with a priority list consisting of; one, motorways; two, access routes to motorways; three, those trunk and class I roads which carry the heaviest of industrial traffic; four, other trunk and class I roads; five, class H and class III roads; six, approaches to isolated villages and communities; and seven, other unspecified roads. The proviso is made that local conditions will demand some variation in the list and roads giving access to hospitals, fire stations, docks and airports are included in those which should be given high priority.
From all this it will be seen that there is certain to be some improvement if there is snow of any magnitude this winter and that the position will improve progressively in future years. It is unlikely that th ; day will ever arrive when there is no chance of being held up when there is a severe snowfall, so there will always he the need to be prepared for this. Don't throw the spades and snow chains away yet.