From Our Berlin Correspondent.
Page 31
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Motor milk vans are now running daily between Budapest and a farm some kilometres from the city. They are fitted with tah.p. engines.
I notice that one of the largest carrying firms in Berlin, the Berliner Packet-Gesellschaft, in the Ritterstrasse, is re-organising its rolling stock on a motor basis. For heavy work, Stoewer lorries, fitted' with fourcylinder engines of some 3oh.p., are being used by the company.
It transpires that Messrs. Bussing, of Brunswick, have been experimenting with benzol, and that their experiments place the practical value of benzol, as a substitute for petrol, beyond any doubt whatever. In point of fact, all the Bussing vans and omnibuses working between Brunswick and Wendeburg are now running on benzol only. Engineer Eunice, who is connected with the firm, states that the experiments resulted, first, in the extraordinarily important proof that the Bussing carburetter, as at present constructed, could carburate benzol. The engines could be started up from cold without difficulty. Sometimes in cold weather, though, it was necessary to introduce •a few drops of petrol into the carburetter by means of the cup-cock on the latter. Nor did the Bussing carburetter show any tendency to "jib " when the engine was throttled for a slow run. Moreover, an inspection of the valves and ignitionplugs failed to show any noteworthy deposits in the combustion chamber.
Like other European municipalities, that of Turin has begun to re-organise its fire-brigade on a motor basis. The vehicle with which a start has been made carries seven or eight firemen, as well as a pump and the necessary hose and other accessories. The engine is slung on a wheeled frame at the tailend of the chassis, fitted with a plat. form for the mechanic who attends to the pump. This pump-carriage runs on two iron-shod wheels, between four and five feet in diameter, so that we get a seemingly cumbersome self-propelled vehicle with six wheels. The chassiswheels have single rubber tires. The driver, and the fireman charged with signalling the engine's approach, occupy a commanding cross-seat on 'the right-hand side of the fore-carriage : the rest of the crew have sitting accommodation lower down, in front and at the sides, whilst lengths of hose flank the body. As might be expected, the chassis came from the F.I.A.T. works : it is normal in type, but stiffened. for a load of 2,500 kilos. With an engine of 28-4oh.p., the top speed works out at about 22 miles an hour, and the waterdelivery at some 340 gallons a minute to a height of 131 feet. The pump is a high-pressure centrifugal one, with bronze turbine : by means of a special gear, it cannot work until the vehicle comes to a standstill. With the pump in action, the motor is kept cool by pump-water forced through a reducing valve. The London depot of the F.I.A.T. Company is at 37-38, Long Acre, W.C.
The Berliner Omnibus-Gesellschaft opened its fourth motorbus line on
March 30th. It connects north and south-west, the northern terminus being the Stettin Railway Station, a busy centre of railway and street traffic. Buses run every six minutes, and the whole journey costs 15 pfennigs (1.875d.); intermediate sections are to pfennigs each. The service will be worked by nine Marienfelde vehicles and one N.A.G. In a chat which I had with one of the chauffeurs this morning, I learnt that the newest type of Daimler continues to give every satisfaction. Nearly all the motorbuses of this company come from Marienfeldei eThe motorbus continues to make further strides in Berlin. That the Berlin Tramcar Company will shortly launch its fleet I have already reported. Now I see that the Omnibos Cornpany is completely motorising the service on line 4, which takes in the Friedrichstrasse, arid will run a motorbus every two minutes. Further, the Ministry of Finance has authorised the same company to establish motorbus lines through the Tiergarten, and to connect up what is known as the Hansaviertel, in the north-west, with other parts of the City, especially those lying south of the park. The securing of this concession has cost no end of trouble; for years past residents of the Hansaviertel—facetiously styled the " New Jerusalem" in consequence of the number of well-to-do Jews living there—have petitioned, directly and indirectly, for improved means of communication, yet all to no purpose. As regularly as clockwork came back the answer—if the authorities took the trouble to answer ac all : "The tranquillity of the Tiergarten must not be disturbed." That the so-called tranquillity of this park might be maintained, thousands of citizens have been inconvenienced daily. The business man who wants to reach Potsdamer Platz, the important west-end centre, must, unless he takes a cab or walks, board a tramcar, which makes a tediously circuitous route,. and finally lands him at a point half-a-mile distant from the Platz, or proceed on foot some quarter of a mile to the Paul Briicke, where, attended by luck, he can secure a seat or standing accommodation in a primitive, one-horse single-decker, which does go straight through the west corner of the Tiergarten to the desired haven, but with such exasperating slowness that he has a mind to get out and walk. I have referred to the Tiergarten's tranquillity as "so-called," and with reason, for electric cars, which are far more noisy than motorbuses, run through the middle way to Charlottenburg, and also along a branch road to the west-end.
The concession for motorbuses is acclaimed not only by Hankaviertelites. proper, but also by residents of the rapidly-growing district on the other side of the river. It means, too, a decided impetus to the Berlin motorbus traffic, which, as most people are aware, is in a shockingly backward state, though so strikingly popular.
The strike of the men driving cabs owned by the Berlin Electric Cab Company has at length come to an end,. and, in connection with this littlelabour war, a curious accident occurred quite recently, luckily without any very serious consequences. During the strike, the company trained a number of substitutes, and, on the day mentioned, one of these happened to bedriving his cab with three ladies asfares alongside the Landwehr Canal, near the fashionable Ltitzower when an ex-striker hove in sight and forthwith opened a running fire of such epithets as " Blackleg " and worse. The chauffeur thus accosted turned to look at his enemy, but, he doing so, steered wildly, with the result that the cab dashed over the low rail skirting the canal and plunged into the water. All four persons were rescued with difficulty, but, at the time of writing, the cab lies almost submerged in the waters of the canal,. with a red flag to mark the. spot. The ladies escaped with a wetting and a fright, while their driver had to he taken to a hospital, having sustained injuries to his leg.
Berlin undertakers' conceptions of the kind of horses suitable for drawing a hearse or a mourning coach would, I fear, call forth a feeling akin to contempt from a London funeral furnisher of any standing. The magnificent, coal-black animals with flowing manesand tails, to which Londoners are accustomed, one never sees in the Prussian capital ; the Berlin furnisher supplies an assortment as to colour, and emphatically inferior cattle as to build. Under these circumstances, the appearance of the motor-hearse on the scenemust be welcomed from an wsthetie point of view. Whether the owners of the innovation, Messrs. Thien and Company, will make their venture pay is another matter. There undoubtedly does exist a popular prejudice against the utilisation of self-propelled vehicles for conveying a corpse to the grave ; the idea shocks one a little. And this prejudice arises not only from the paralysing force of custom, but also, I think, from the fact that, in the popular mind, such vehicles have been, and still are, generally associated with pleasure, sport and high speed ; all such ideas are repugnant to the solemnities of a funeral. But, like other prejudices, it will go in time. Messrs_ Emil Thien and Co.'s hearse is electric, and, so far as I know, the first of its kind in Germany. They themselves built the body, which rests on a Gottfried-Hagen chassis with batteries giving a working radius of 75 miles at one charge. The hearse will not come into use until the middle of April—at any rate, Messrs. Thien's representative informed me that under normal conditions the upholstery would not be finished until then. But the conditions are not normal : the upholsterers are on strike. It is interesting to observe that Messrs. Thien, who show Berlin the way in the case of the self-propelled hearse, were the first to introduce the taximeter motorcab here. .