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AMOST elaborate spare-part catalogue has recently been issued, in English and French, by Norris, Plenty and Gardners, Ltd., in connection with the type-L.W. oil engine. Every detail is illustrated, showing how far standardization has been achieved with this type, which is made with four, five or six cylinders.
ANYWHERE tickets, permitting unlimited travel by bus, are becoming increagingly popular and good results are being obtained from their use. Manchester Corporation is issuing them at the rate of about 9,000 a week, representing. :£20,000 a year. On a recent fine Sunday 4,000 such tickets were sold.
THE absurdity of the speed-limit regulations applied to light commercial motors was exemplified when the driver of a Morris Minor van was fined £2 10s. for travelling at 48 m.p.h. It was pointed out that a private car weighing 2 tons could do 75 m.p.h. without prosecution. A SERIES of warnings to bus operators has been given recently by Mr. J. H. Stirk, chairman of the East Midland Traffic Commissioners. Offending operators, including those who run private cars, charging separate fares without having road-service licences, are being vigorously prosecuted.
AT a sitting, a few days ago, Mr. Stirk mentioned the case of a bus proprietor against whom 10 counts were secured, the magistrate fining him on every one. The Commissioners are also sending officers to races and other events to watch for irregularities amongst operators.
IT is obvious that the Commis.sioners are deter mined that the law shall be observed down to the last letter, and operators would do well to accept these warnings and make sure that they are not unwittingly infringing the Road Traffic Act. The " roundnp " in the East Midland Area is but an example of steps that are being taken in other Areas. ENTHUSIASM is being expressed in several sec tions of the motor industry of America on the economical figures resulting from tests of oil engines. Several of the well-known European engines are now being tried out over there, as well as the Cummins unit, which, of course, originates from the States.
THE Indiana Corporation has run a Cummins engined vehicle, weighing 8 tons gross, from New York to Los Angeles—a distance of about 3,000 miles—in 97. hours 20 minutes, averaging 33 m.p.h. Fuel consumption was at the rate of 15f miles per American gallon, the cost of the fuel amounting to only $11.22.
TN most factories nowadays production has reached such a pithh that transport, the clearing of manufactured products and their delivery to customers, has become the outstanding problem, in which connection the views of a leather merchant are of interest. Having ordered a large consignment of materials from the north of England he was delighted to find that it was delivered at his premises at Northampton in 24 hours. He was of the opinion that only by road transport could such promptitude have been achieved. SOME surprising figures dealing with the respec tive local rates paid by the railways and the road users were published in the recent observations of the R.H.A. We suggest that these should be issued as a poster, which would open the eyes of the public and knock one of the main planks out of the railway platform.
EXHAUST systems with silencers of large dimen sions are familiar, but equally large induction silencers are unusual. A certain vehicle with a straight-eight engine, having valve timing of the type which causes excessive induction noise, is equipped with a Yokes air cleaner and silencer which rivals the exhaust silencer for size, and the two large pipes—the one from the exhaust manifold and the other to the twin carburetters—run side by side for practically the full length of the vehicle. Without the induction silencer the engine is said to sound like a machine gun.
IN view of the imminence of the beet-haulage season it is interesting to note that during the eight years of the existence of the beet-sugar industry over 1 million tons of dirt has been delivered to the factories at an average cost of 4s, 6d. per ton for transport.