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THE TROLLE) S A SUCCESS.

6th September 1921
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Page 12, 6th September 1921 — THE TROLLE) S A SUCCESS.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Ten Months' Experience of the System Service can be Run at a Profit lows that a Public Passenger Transport r4es Municipally Provided Power.

T

HE City of York would aPpear to have

approached very closely to the solution of the passenger transport problem confronting its liataway Department. Time alone will show whether, as some people think, the tramway (except perhaps along the arteries carrying the very densest traffic), will be entirely displaced by rubbertyred vehicles independent of rails, and whether the coats for liquid fuel and maintenance will„ as is asserted by others, come down to such an extent that the working costs of petrol-driven buses will be more on a parity with those which derive their motive phwer from an'electricity generating station. York's problem is by no means tuaique. The same conditions rule in many of the large towns and cities of this country and abroad. The older the town, usually the narrower and more awkward are the streets at its heart. Overcrowding at its centre is pushing the populace more and more towards the outskirts. Rousing schemes aim at the development of new suburbs, at present rural in their character and invariably demanding the creation of a means of transport toiand from the centre, or the extensive development of such means as already exist.

. Before the war a municipal authority in possession of an electricity generating station would 4. have inclined to the installation of an electric tramway to the new suburb, or to any other district where it could be shown that the service provided by the existing system was inadequate, and called for extensions of the system. It would have been faced with the opposition of those who foresaw the eventual displacement of the. tramcar by the motorbus' and who would, in their arguments, be able clearly to . show that, by reason of the fact that the bus. required no expensive installation of permanent-way and overhead wires, experiments in routes, services, route extensions, etc, could be made without the risk of serious loss if the bus were chosen as the means of locomotion.

Even in those halcyon days the cost of installi a tramway was unreasonably high, imposing a. hca burden of interest charges on the undertaking, 1 day a finance committee, desirous of doing its b4 for the ratepayers, simply stands aghast at thet.eE mates submitted to it for the construction of permancnt-way. Estimates of £80,000 per mile t: not uncommon, and they are ringed around with many reservations that it would be impossible say how much the real cost would be, or when t line would be open and ready for trafac. The stumbling block to the adoption of the pet driven, motorbus, with its advantages of compl. freedom from route restriction, would be the. tence of the municipal power station as a. sou: of cheap current, and to those who, taking th cue from the. late Lord Fisher, stand and shot "Scrap the trams! Give them buses!" we stron, recommend the consideration of this factor, becat it. as. important.

Into the arena, at this point, • there steps quite a ew proposition—not new in respect of time, for he scheme has-been experimentally tried and adopted n. small systems for some.. years now, but new in ircumstance and surroundings—the trolley-bus, or ailiess car. It is a rubber-tyred vehicle of any uitable size, capable of being steered in and out f• traffic as easily as the most flexible motorcar, idependent of all other vehicles in the same system, nd unobstructed (just, astis,the motorbus) by breakowns on their part (provided, of course, that there 5 room in the, roadway to pass). and -yet drawing A current from the municipal generating station y way of overhead wires, at a cost which is claimed a be substantially lower than the cost of liquid lel performing khe same volume of work. For the past ten months there have been running York, over a route about l miles in length, -om the Market Place to lieworth (a suburban area n the north-east of the city, which has been selected as the site of the .eorporation's•new housing centre), four trolley-buses, constructed and supplied by 'tailless, Ltd., of 56, Moorgate Street, London, E.C.2., We had an opportunity last week of insPecting the vehicles, of examining the sy.stern and of hearing the experiences andropinions of the officials of the York Tramways Department, and we found saiisfaction. being breathed) at every turn. In the first place, the overhead wires are as unobtrusive as could be expected, for they are carried on arms extending from poles placed on one side of the road only. Then the vehicles (because of the.narrowness and tortuousness of the streets near the city's centre). are not wider than 6 ft. 3 ins. overall, and have an ample steering lock, so that they could be manoeuvred with ther.greatest• of ease, the driver acting as if entirely unhampered by any thoughts of trolleys or wires, or the need for keeping them in association. A third point has been the reliability and absence of mechanical or electrical trouble ; the service, consequently, having earned the confidence of the inhabitants. In yet another respect we heard praise—the comparative silence • of the vehicles at all speeds. London buses are quiet enough on good road surfaces, but they are not so quiet as the electrically driven trolley-bus. As for the tramcars, they arealways necessarily noisy, through wheel friction on curves, gaps, in the rails at crossings and at junctions, and irregularities in the permanentway. • As the route along which the rail-less cars or .trolley-buses operate is a new one and the traffic has to be developed, the first year of working could not unreasonably he regarded as experimental. Yet in the first five months, to the end of the last accounting period, the revenue was within £47 of the expenditure, and during the current. year there is every prospect of a profit being shown. The fare charged for, the single journey of lf miles is 2d.. for adults and Id. for children. Two buses are kept running throughout the day, and the two buses in reserve are available for coping with emergencies or any rush of traffic. Each bus seats 24 passengers, the seats being longitudinal, with a transverse seat at the. rear. The entrance is at the front, beside the driver, who is segregated from the passengers. A funnel mouth slot receives the fare•of each. entering leassenger, dropping into a glass receiver in the driver's compartment, and being then passed on by the driver to the collecting-box. This pay-as-youenter system reduces the labour charge per vehicle considerably, andis quite effective.

Whilst on the question' offinance, it is opportune to compare the three competing passenger-carrying systems, and, regarding their earning power, standing charges and working costa as an economical triangle—earning power being above the lineand the costs and charges below it, the difference between them representing profit or loss—we are able to show the comparison diagrammatically, thus: The smaller size of motorbuses and trolley-buses ensures a faster average speed and less empty running (fewer vacant seats) than is the ease with tramcars. The capacity of the buses is ample, and their ability to approach close to the kerb for loading and unloading is often a turning point in their favour in the eyes of the nervous. Thus, their earning power is higher than -that of tramcars. Dealing with standing charges, these are highest in. the easerof saarail-bound system, because of the, heavy permanent-way costa and interest on capital. They are low' in the case of trolley-buses, because of the simplicity of. the driving mechanism, entailing small maintenance outlay, while the overhead wires, poles and fittings suffer extremely little wear or depreciation.

The working costs of motorbuses are high because of the excessive cost of fuel and the cost.-of overhauling and maintaining the _mechanism. They are low in the case of both trolley-buses and tramcars because of the cheapness of the power.

The capital outlay is highest in the ease of the tramway -and lowest in the case, of the motorbus system, capital:charges being included in our chart under "standing charges" The next accounts of' the Tramways Department of the City of York should be very interesting.

Reverting once again, to the trolley-bums in operation at York, the difficulty thatwould face the most critical onlooker would be to find some ground. for his criticism. The vehicles are speedy, being capable

of 18 on a good road. A very steep hill can be climbed at 4 m.p.h., and the acceleration at all times is very smooth and rapid. The' brakes are ample, as there are two external-contracting brakes acting on drums on the shafts behind the`moters, and two interuslexpanding brakes acting. on drums on the road wheels. The slight hum of the motors

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is discernible inside the bus, but is not unpleasan Probably it can be entirely prevented.

The body is light, and a notable point is du the weight of the trolley arms is not carried on th roof. It is taken on a light steel framework, whic passes immediately behind the driver down to th chassis frame. The control is, of course,. vei simple, but, in the course of a chat with em driver, we were impressed with their knowledge ( the mechanism under their charge and its function and method of operation. Whenever the mode of operating a trolley-bus i up for discussion, we find the question that is in variably asked is: "How does one bus get past stationary one I" It. is, of course, simple enough the poles of the stationary bus being pulled dowi by the bamboo hitcher and hooked under tie bracket's on the roof during the pressing of the seem bus. The vehicle can deviate 17 ft. on either aidi of the centre of the road without risk of de-wiring even when at full speed.

The plan-view Which we give of the chassis, look

g at it from the front, shows that the trolley-bus moa entirely within the scope ot the commercial hide factory. There is the usual frame, (amply oss-mernbered, it is true !) punted on springs upon axles and leek, the steering being carried

forward and the connecting d being transverse instead of ngitudinal. The drive from the To 23 b.h.p. motors is by universly jointed shafts to a double 3rrn gear, thus dispensing with a fferential gear. The double set

brakes and the trolley ,pole ame ,complete the specification. Our firm contention is that the ,mmercial vehicle industry should ice, up and foster' this branch of iblic passenger service. It would variably be fostered at the exinse of the tramways -and not at at of the motorbus industry. The City of York Traanways epartment is watching the runng of these rail-less buses very osely. There are 'other services , hich it is desired to establish, and there: are two her omnibus systems to be displaced. The battery-iven buses are not economical, because of the incidence of battery maintenance and of the cost of moving the battery as part of the load of the vehicle. The Department has not been successful with its petrol-driven buses, and soon there must.arise the question of the renewal of the permanent-way for the rail-bound tramcars. It is not at all improbable that the example of another northern town will be followed, and the road be resurfaced without rails, the overhead wiring being used to convey current to an enlarged fleet of trolley-buses.

The Corporation of Birmingham has recently placed an order with Rail-less, Ltd., fdr a dozen omnibuses to operate on a service on the northern side of the city, so that the system is gaining favour, and may certainly be expected to secure further adherents as the results become generally known. That the experiment at York is being closely watched by other municipal authorities there is ampleevidence, and it is for this reason that we again urge commercial vehicle makers to be in the closest possible touch with a promising new development in public passenger transport


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