From Our Berlin Correspondent.
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To Help at Fires.
An automobile ambulance wagon has become a permanent feature of the Wilmersdorf fire-brigade. Wilmersdorf, by the way, is one of the youngest boroughs on the outskirts of Berlin, and, in this respect, sets an excellent example to the capital. The wagon in question belongs to the Municipal Humane Society, and during fires it is stationed near the scene, in charge of a fireman, in readiness to carry off immediately any injured person to the nearest hospital or ambulance-station, where he may promptly receive the necessary attention.
Electric Ambulances.
By degrees, German fire brigades are making an electric ambulance wagon a feature of their rolling stock, and the Bremen brigade has just acquired a vehicle of the kind from the North German Automobile and Motor Company, of Bremen. The vehicle has a front drive, Krieger electromotors being applied to each wheel. With a battery of 195 ampere-hours' capacity, we get a maximum speed of some to miles an hour—quite fast enough for an ambulance wagon—and a working radius of 5o miles. At top speed, the consumption of current is at the rate of so-Oo amperes. The wheel gauge of the wagon, which was built by a noted Berlin specialist, measures 4 feet 8 inches, the wheel base 8 feet 3 inches, and the height 7 feet to inches.
A Heavy Bill lor Repairs.
In the report of the Allgemeine Ber linerOmnibus-G esellschaft, which closed the year 1907 with a loss of „4:,27,499 against a profit of .4;31,248 in 1906, the motorbuses are valued at .".,tro,o61-, whereas in 1906 the self-propelled rolling stock appeared as ;4;36,138. This rie in mechanical pro. pulsion was not, however, accompanied by a fall in the live stock, the number of horses having risen from 4,148 to 4,558, although the directors elected to value this stock at over L25,000 less. The higher range of fares conceded for motorbuses was the main factor in sending up the company's gross receipts, yet, unfortunately, what these vehicles gave here they took away elsewhere, as the bill for repairs amounted to little short of so per cent. of the purchase price. This is an extraordinary item, in view of the makes employed, and would seem to point to improper handling, or a defective system of mechanical supervision and maintenance, for I take it for granted that the damages caused to rolling stock, by the destructive fire at the Vittoria depot were wholly covered by insurance. Anyhow, this bill for repairs to motorbuses constituted but one of several factors which co-operated in converting an absolutely substantial profit into an equally substantial loss, namely, higher wages, heavier social burdens, with increased cost of fodder and working materials. The extraordinarily large sum ab
sorbed by repairs to the company's selfpropelled vehicles has caused considerable surprise in motor-engineering circles here.
Apart from the generally depreciative character of the Berlin company's reports relating to the motorbus service, whereby shareholders and the public are given to understand that this branch does not pay, as well as from the question whether, and to what extent, other charges may have been included in the sum set down for repairs, so high a figure must be attributed, primarily, to a defective organisation. That, last year, the vehicles of the Allgemeine Berliner Omnibus-Gesellschaft were not kept in the condition required for an economical working of such omnibuses was tolerably evident to any observant layman, and the company would seem to have adopted the policy of running them to the end of their mechanical tether and then, but not till then, consigning them to the repairing shop. Any make in the world would involve enormous costs of maintenance under such a state of affairs. Yet one hardly knows what to think of the report, in face of the announced extension of the company's motorbus service. If selfpropelled omnibuses are so unprofitable as the directors allege them to be, why increase the number of lines? With a repairing bill at " half the purchase price " per annum and a low range of fares, there does not seem to be the remotest chance of earning any profit.