• MOTORS. . . ON MUNICIPAL WORK.
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The Uses to which Mechanically-driven Vehicles can be put by Highways, Street Cleaning, and Other Municipal Departments.
DURING THE post-Armistice period local authorities concerned with the well-being of the areas Tinder their control have shown a welcome change of front in the matter of the transport considered suitable for municipal needs. Reasons for this are not far to seek. We are au. very, apt to forget that the five years we'spent in war. completely _ upset the balance between advancing knowledge and the practicarapplication thereof. Knowledge has gone on accumulating, not in its normal ratio but at an unprecedented rate, for to our usual sources of knowledge available to us from,day to day and not diminished by the world cataclysm, there has been added the vast store of new facts and new experiences brought to light by the war. Hence, knowledge of the value of motor transport has advanced by leaps and bounds ; more than that, there has gone hand-in-hand with that acquisition _ the, growth of confidence in the motor vehicle. It has been learned that under the greatest of all stresses, under the fiercest strains which removed animal transport entirely from the sphere of usefulness, mechanical transport proved to be reliable and dependable. ;This has been a great'surprise to many people; and particularry• to, those who quith 'unavoidably ere submerged in the conservative atmosphere of officialdom. It is only in war time that departments may show natural enterprise, and plate efficiency and effectiveness above mere
economy. • .
But until the past year it has not been possible in municipal offices to apply the new knowledge, to give effect to newly-formed convictions. Thus the change.of front has seemed much more sudden than has really been the case. The use of motor vehicles is now favoured by practically all the progressive municipal councils, and surveyors are finding little opposition but much P3 ouragement in the transport reform upon -which they are bent from the finance committees. The next few years, therefore, will see a very considerable change of method, and it will be of advantage if we outline the uses to which the vehicles may be put. Taking the town of Rochda.le, in Yorkshire, AS One of our examples, the street demising and transport department up
to May of this year conveyed the coal used by the Corporation's electricity works by horses and carts from the railway siding which is situated about a mile away. Theee steam wagons were specially constructed to the order of the department by the Yorkshire Commercial Motor Co.' of Leeds, and put into service. Each leas a low well body made to tip at the end and is fitted with an engine-driven mane. The latter useful device was attached in ceder to save the expense of employing manual labour when heavy materials are required to be hauled for the electricity works and other departments, such as rolls of electric cable, tramway rails, etc. These wagons have proved eminently successful. The transport department has, after six months working, come to the conclusion that the experiment, has been entirely satisfactory, although it is not yet possible to set out comparative figures of costs.
In addition to the Steam wagons, the department has in use seven petroldriven vehicles, the range including three-ton, four-ton, and five-ton wagons, a Ford van and a 30-ewts lorry. These are put to varims purposes, which include the collection of ashes from the schools in the borough, the collection of refuse from business premises, the collection of pails of excreta from the outlying districts, the removal of riddled ashes and clinkers from the destructor works, the removal -of ashes from the electricity works, the conveyance of tramway track materials to and from the various depots, and also the conveyance of paving end sewering reaterials to the depot and to the scene e ef opesations, whilst from the railway sidings all sorts of material have to be conveyed, including such items as salt for the streets in snowy weather, flagstones, paving setts, castings, and rails. A load that freeuently has to be handled is oxygen in gteel bottles, which is transported by road from Manchester.
C28 One of Rochdale's wagons is adapted so that its body can quickly be removed and replaced by a tank with a capacity of 450 gallons, for street-watering.
In addition to the vehicles enumerated, the town possesses three machines which are solely used in street cleaning. The 5-6-ton vacuum galley emptier is mounted on a Yorkshire steam chassis, and it has been found that quite a material saving is effected in its use as compared with the old method of emptying gulleys by manual labour. The motor
street-sweeping machine supplied by Thos. Green and Sons, Ltd., of Leeds, has done exceedingly good service, and has more than repaid the Oorporation for the capital outlay and maintenance.
The last machine of the Corporation's fleet is an electric-driven vehicle, which is virtually a tramway watering car, used for watering the streets in the daytime when necessary and at night is employed as the motive poeer for sweeping the whole of the roads along which the track is laid. This is a machine of which London knows nothing, probably because the municipal authorities have no interest whatever in the tramway system, which is the property of the County Council. Street sweeping by means of such a ma chine affords a substantial saving as compared with horse-drawn sweeperit. So far as Manchester is concerned, the Highways Department -of the Corporation decided some little while ago to purchase three steam wagons to work in conjunction with the existing stud of 50 horses. One of these wagons, which is a 3i-ton Sentinel, rubber-tyred, and equipped with an end-tipping body, commenced work in July last and has rendered a very satisfactory account of itself. The time of working has obviously been all too short to enable the department to give comparative figures of costs, but the efficiency of the vehicle has already clearly shawn itself. In the opinion of the city engineer, it is desirable to use horses only for short journeys, or where consifferable time is unavoidably occupied in loading when carting over moderate distances, and also when, it is required for the vehicle to traverse soft ground, but. in all other circumstances the power-driven vehicle shines. It is found to be moat useful and very economical in journeys of a length of five to e:ut miles and 'Tweeds, as, for instance, when removing cargoes of stone setts, macadam chippings, etc., from. the Manchester Ship Canal Docks to the depots and to various works within the city. The steam wagon carrying loads averaging four tons can remove from four to five times the weight removed by a horse and cart. This in itself means a great saving, whilst there comes into consideration the queer rents and penalty charges which would be incurred if the stone were not expeditiously removed from the quayside.
With regard to developments in Huddersfield it is interesting to know that the Corporation has recently decided to group the whole of its transport under a Transport Department, of which Mr. H. Neaverson has been given charge. The aim and intention is to avoid much dead or empty running, any department requiring transport applying to the Transport Department, which le-ill arrange the journeys of the vehicles to the best advantage, charging for its service at ordinary market rates of freight. It is confidently asserted that a large annual saving will be effected. We hope shortly to go very fully into Huddersfield's transport development.