T HE French Government is taking steps in a Bill to
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suppress the present fuel monopoly, conditions being laid down to cover the iniportation of and trading in oil fuels. At the same time, the Government will advantageously clear itself of its stocks of fuel. [Page 203.
THE thoroughness with which British manufacturers of commercial motor vehicles are catering for the overseas markets by the construction of vehicles specially suitable for the prevailing road conditions is very encouraging. We are able to give the first views of the recently designed Pagefield overseas four-tortner, which gives an axle clearance of no less than 161 ins., or half as much again as that demanded under the War Office subsidy echeme.
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A GREAT fight on behalf of motor interests will have to be put up in Parliament against the motor traffic clauses of the Bill& lodged by Manchester City Council. The diffiaulty of providing safety for passengers alighting ST0111 or entering trauaears has been created by the tramway authorities themselves, and the proper solution is not the holding up and delaying of all traffio that is unlucky enough to get behind a tramcar. [Page 204.
AN important event of the week was the fifteenth parade of commercial vehicles brought together by the Commercial Motor Users Association in competition for The Commercial Motor Challenge Oup and for the group prizes for the drivers of the seven leading. teams. The examinations for the Drivers' Championship (in the three classes, steam, petrol, and electric), which are among the beat work of the Association, are this year dissociated from the Parade. Our report deals fully with the event.
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A -VERY interesting development of the motor coach business is outlined in an interview, published in our pages this week, with Mr. C. F. Rymer, of Liverpool. Many difficulties crop up in connection with obtaining suitable accommodation for passengers and coaches at their destination and the purchase of a mansion and estate at Llangollen, which will be made into a coach party resort, is an indication of the kind .of solution being sought to the problem. [Page 213.
THE tractor trials which ere, this year, being organized by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders will be conducted on particularly good linos, fair to the entrants and informative to farmers. The combined experiences of 1979 as a S.M.M. and T. trial and of 1920 as a Royal Agricultural Society's contest, have been brought to bear to produce this result. We comment upon the conditions framed for next September's competition on our agrimotor pages. [Page 224. Railways and Railway Transport Inquiry. THE COMMITTEE set up by the Minister of Transport to inquire and report whether it be desirable that the railway companies should have general or-limited power to carry goods by road, and, if so, what, if any, conditions should be attached to the exercise of this power, has rendered its reports to the Minister, and these will be laid before Parliament in. the course of a few days. We are quite prepared for a minority report in disagreement with that of the majority, and our anticipation is that the majority report will not favour the granting to the railway eonapanies-of extended powers, to run transport on the road, independent of contaet with any railway system. In these columns strong arguments have been urged against, the proposal, and we trust that these arguments will be justified by the findings of, at least, a majority of the Committee.
Manchester and its Motor Traffic
IN ONE of those states, wisely governed for the benefit of the whole of the populace by an allpowerful and thoroughly representative body of citizens (the 'fond dream; let it be understood, of the novelist, but never destined to become a reality), a tramway system, which had been rendered obsolete / by a service of vehicles independent of tracks, would be swept entirely from the streets when. the reason for its creation no longer existed. In the days of rough road surfaces and of steel tyres, a metal tram road was the only available method of moving, by public vehicle, a large number of people with some degree of comfort. But the coming of the rubber tyre and of the motor vehicle have brought about a revolution in the conditibas of street travel, and now the tramway system is found, in practically every city where it is employed, to be isolated from the pavements, from which it draws its patrons, by streams of fast traffic on either side, Thus, the, tramway system suffers in every way from the limitations of its own rails; the car can neither go beyond its termini, nor can it deflect to avoid other vehicles on the road, nor approach the kerbs to load and unload its .passengers. Moreover,_ so susceptible to small troubles are the tramcar driving gear and the plant from which power is obtained, that the best place for the tramway is in the centre of the road, where the lines of dead and inert vehicles do not so thoroughly obstruct the roadway or deprive i313 the shopkeeper of the use of the ioad opposite his premises for his own loading and unloading. Manchester's suggested way out of one small trouble—the need for tramcar passengers to exercise wariness of passing traffic when entering or alighting from a tramcar—is as amateurish and bland as would have been expected from the average Chinaman. It is sought to compel ell motor traffic to come to a standstill behind a tramcar at its halting place. One has only to consider for a moment tiie manner in which a tramcar is. driven through a street from halting place to halting place to be able to visualize the tremendous congestion that must inevitably follow, should the sanction be given to the motor traffic clauses in the Bill which the Manchester City Council has lodged in Parliament this Session.
The cost to all users of motor vehicles would be stupendous, and it is safe to say that this is not the way out of the trouble. If Manchester is not prepared to substitute motorbuses for its tramway system (and we say this with a full appreciation of the fact that the system in that city is more reliable, and offers greater conveniences to its patrons than in many planes which shall be nameless), it would be better to build subways across the roads, with an exit on to central islands, for the accommodation of tramc.ar passengers. In the long run it would be more generally economical, whilst it would giveimmediate relief to the problem.
Transport Benefits by Good Team Work.
BUT for the interruption of the war, the parade of commercial motor vehicles held in London by the Commercial Motor Users Association would have been the twentieth of the series. But with a lapse of five years, last Saturday's event ranked as the fifteenth. The parade and the attendant examinations, written and practical, of drivers are among the best of the Association's work, because the incentive is applied at the right point ; it encourages thought, care, and attention on the part of the men who handle the vehicles, and adds thereby to the longevity and the well-being of the machines. The men have learned to take additional pride in the machinery enteusted to them; they have been enabled to shake off the trammels that would pre-vent free expression, and, in consequence, are able to show that they are better workmen and better men.
At the 1914 parade no fewer than 487 steam and petrol driven vehicles were entered in competition, and, were the C.M.U.A. this year to have thrown the gathering open under the 1914 regulations, the entry would have been colossal. But the amount of work thrown upon the Association and its staff had become unreasonable in that neversteebe-forgotten year, and the decision to limit the parade to teams of not less than six vehicles had the desired effect of reducing it to workable proportions. Thus, any comparison on the point of numbers with the 1914 competition would be misleading, but it will be seen that the entrants this year exceeded in number those of last year.
There is a real and practical value in the influence of team competition quite apart from the one to which reference has already been made. It has now become an honour to a driver to have his vehicle and himself included in the team entered for the parade by an owner, and, whenever a fleet exceeds six vehicles in number, there must be a year-long competitionamong the driver e to avoid being left out of the chosen team. And, in a team having a fair chance for the cup and its attendant prizes, the weakest of the reeds must get considerable help and encouragement from the others to avoid spoiling their chances.
All this is to the good of the vehicles and to the B14 advantage of road transport. And, in• congratulating the Commercial Motor Users Association upon the success of Saturday's parade, we can assure the officials that it is the general opinion that they are doing goad work—work which is appreciated by users, not only in London, the home of parades, but in the provinces, where they promise to be equally popular.
The Motor Coach of the Future.
HAT THE motor coach has come to .stay is in.
disputable, but to be entirely successful it rapt be made to aippeal to all classes of the community, and this will only be achieved by continued improvements in the design of chassis intended for this work and the provision of bodies which will have to be almost, if not quite, as luxurious as those at present employed on private cars.
If the pneumatic or some form of cushion tyre proves, beyond doubt, that it can be successfully and efficiently employed on the motor coach, rauch will have been done to increase the comfort of the passengers when riding in these vehicles. Even now, with comparatively few pneumatie-tyred coaches on the roads, intending passengers display marked preference for these, as compared with the vehicles running on solid tyres. With the increased adoption of the air or cushien tyre we may expect considerable modifications in chassis design in order to give increased vehicle speed at the same engine speed and lighter build throughout the mechanism.
It is probable that developments in the cushion tyre will enable it to he employed on those vehicles now employing solid tyres, whereas the use of the pneumatic tyre will be confined to vehicles in which luxury and the comfort of passengers are more important than such considerations as increased fares. Until quite recently, the motor coach seating from 25 to 30 persons practically held the field, but the use of smaller coaches is becoming more and more popular, and there should be a big demand for these for the transport of small parties who wish to keep themselves more select and apart from "the crowd," and for family gatherings. Ifdoes not often pay to enter the small coach into competition with its bigger brother, owing to the higher cost of running per passenger, particularly as the smaller vehicle is almost invariably fitted with pneumatic tyres. In order to make it pay, it will have to be developed for its own special branch of the motor coach business, where it will be able to command higher fares. Efforts are being made to develop a satisfactory all-weather vehicle, and the most recent development in this direction is a vehicle with a semi-permanent roof, which ean be employed in several ways! in winter as a completely-enclosed saloon coach or, in salubrious conditions, without windows but with the roof in position ; and in summer, with the whole top portion removed, leaving a char-à-banes body of the ordinary type, to which a hood ewe be fitted. This appears to be the most satisfactory answer which has yet been put forward to meet the problem. Many passengers have a rooted objection to riding in fine weather with a, roof over their heads, and yet they are equally dissatisfied with the failings of the ordinary, so-called, one-man hood. Several makers have endeavoured to produce vehicles which can be used satisfactorily for either goods or passengers, but there is little to be said in favour of the dual-purpose vehicle. At the best, it must be a mean, as the springing and final drive gear ratios of a passenger vehicle and those of a vehicle for the conveyance of goods are not at all suitable if used in a. capacity for which they have not been designed ; it is probable, therefore, that the design of the motor coach chassis will diverge more and more from that of the chassis made for goods carrying only.