Fortunes in Chars - a - bancs. T HERE HAVE BEEN a number of references in
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this journal, of late, to the indicated proba bilities of a record season this year for pleasure passenger -traffio, and particularly for char-abanes holiday trips. From inquiries we have made of the leading British manufacturers, the demand that has been experienced since the new year for suitable chassis has been almost embarrassing. Prices are actually being paid for machines but a month or two old that are, at least, 25 per cent, in advance of the manufacturers latest catalogued figures—a circumstance of `which agents and makers alike must have taken note with very mixed feelings. . The demand for these large passenger-carrying models is not one that arises from any serious national transport emergency—such, for instance, as that caused by the present incapacity of the railways to carry the merchandize of the country with anything like expedition. From the national point of view, it would not actually matter if chars-h-bancs were, for a while, unobtainable. It would merely be disappointing; whereas, the delay arising in the delivery of a goods-carrying lorry might well be of very con n24 siderable importance to some, section of the community or other. The reason for the urgency that char-a-banes proprietors are pressing is, therefore, purely a financial one and the amount of the premiums that are being offered are measures of the anticipated success that will attend such ventures this year and in. the future. .
A first-class char-h-banes de luxe will, we may assume, cost something over 21,500 'ti-day and 10 per cent. on that sum is, of course, RHO. An average char-a-bancs will take, say, 30 passengers at 2s. each for a return. journey of eight miles which, allowing for terminals`and stops may take an hour. This means traffic at a figure that, for the sake of illustration, mgy be taken at, say, 7s. 6d. per mile and operating costs, including all possilale charges even on a high-class vehicle of this kind should be well within 2s. a mile. To earn .2150, or 10 per cent. on £1.500, the mileage would have to be under 550 miles I A motorbus in London will run up to a figure much in excess of this every week. Earnings in. some districts exceed even the figures quoted above. There is little reason to wonder why enthusiasts are bidding 22,000 for secondhand machine; to provide for a season when, even if rates be raised 50 per cent., it would have no effect on holiday-making traffic.