Bird's Eye View — By The Hawk
Page 22
Page 23
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Maritime Tale
nID you bear the story of the truck sideboard delivered to
a consignee on the Isle of Wight during the recent floods? According to local reports, it was spotted at sea, on the way back to the mainland, by the B.R.S. ship which had originally transported it and was duly re-delivered.
The truth, however (straight from B.R.S.), is that "a small package" was washed out into the Solent from the premises of a Ford agent on the island. It was simply picked up by a B.R.S. ship and, thanks to an intact label, re-delivered.
A nice gesture, and probably written-off as such. But what, one wonders, would be a fair charge in such a situation— delivery cost, or the value of salvage? After all, if there hadn't been a label, B.R.S. could presumably have claimed the package (after a year and a day) as flotsam—or would it have been treasure-trove?
Real Waste
EXCITING possibilities can be visualized after LA reading an application published in Applications and Decisions of the Northern traffic area by J. J. Haley and Sons, 27 Derwent Street, Chopwell. They want a tanker of 9i tons, fitted with blower discharge, on A licence to carry opencast coal, furniture, building materials, farm produce and implements, food stuff, time, to Northumberland, Durham, Manchester, Liverpool, London and Scotland.
The phrase which really catches my eye here is "fitted with blower discharge." If they use this for all the commodities mentioned in their user, the staff at the various receiving ends will be claiming danger money. Anyway, what price feeding coal and cocktail cabinets into the tanker? That should test the efficiency of something.
Rescue By Road
IN THE small hours of one morning recently, when Coras lIompair Eireann was hoping that there would be nobody else about, that organization's abnormal indivisible load experts were using their skill on the wings of an American B-47 aircraft. This very special aeroplane had been so inconsiderate as to get into serious trouble over the Atlantic, but it managed to struggle on beyond that portion of Ireland which claims to be the next parish to the United States.
An outcome of the mishap was that last week C.I.E. faced one of their most involved jobs of transportation, the movement of the wings (which measured 34 ft. by 17 ft. by 2 ft.) along the highway between Limerick harbour and Shannon airport, a route that is by no means a motorway, Ir. Tim Dennehy, C.I.E. information officer, tells me that Luse the road had to be closed they were carrying out the k between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., when they hoped that there Id be few road users to be treated to the persuasive powers he Irish police, Since Ireland is not highly industrialized, 3rmal indivisible loads are no burning question, but the a transport organization likes to keep on the right side of citizens.
stly Speed
-1E use of electronic computors in industry is on the increase, and nearly all the leading vehicle manufacturers is country are either using or are showing great interest in e machines in connection with unit or spares stock control. man who has specialized on the application of computors is field is Mr. H. S. Woodgate, of International Computors Tabulators, Ltd., who told me that a suitable machine Id take only 20 minutes to check 20,000 individual parts and detailed information on excess or lack of spares and such he speed of the unit can be further illustrated by the fact , for each part number, it makes 3,000 programme steps approximately 10,000 calculations including repeats. All is done, of course, in a fraction of a second. It is. there, hardly surprising that vehicle manufacturers are showing .est, but there is one drawback. A suitable computor would something in the region of £160,000.
ym,ent By Results !
MAN fined for illegal minibus operation told the court he did not know how much he was being paid. He said 'left that to the passengers."
lere is a moral there, perhaps, for bus operators faced with problem of falling traffic.