LOADING FROM RAILWAY TRUCKS.
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Can Standing Time Be Cut Down by Using Small Removable Containers ?
By "Vim.
ALTHOUGH the primary interest that life holds for the commercial vehicle agent is the booking of orders, and then more orders, there are few of us with soul so dead-that we do not ever give a thoughti to matters affecting the prosperity of mechanical transport as a whole. Hence these remarks on a problem which, while it cannot be solved by any dealer as an individual, none the less intimately concerns the trade's future welfare. And that problem is, how to eliminate standing time so far as possible.
Old Methods and New Devices.
Our vehicles have been improved almost out of knowledge during the last-decade, but the methods of those who use the motor lorries which we sell have remained stationary, save in the case of a few big commercial undertakings who have -grasped the importance of providing speedy loading and unloading facilities. Even with these wideawake users, rapid loading can, as a rule, only be achieved where that process is carried out at their own premises. The picking up of loads elsewhere must always depend on local facilities, and these are so rare as to be quite negligible. Rapid unloading—of lorries, at any rate---has to some extent been secured by the modern development of the tipping body ; but that Js really only a partial remedy, for, although it certainly permits the motor vehicle to complete delivery in the briefest space of time, the dumped materials have almost invariably to be shifted again, which means man-handling and consequent additions to the cost of the material before it can be used.
Delay in Off-loading from Railway Wagons.
My own observations lead me to say that of all time-wasting loading operations, the job of getting stuff out of railway wagons into motor vehicles is nearly the worst. In part, the expenditure of time is caused by Waiting for wagons to be got into position; in part, to some goods yards closing at awkward hours; the remainder is caused by the difficulty_ of w,orking freely within the confined space, especially when shovels have to be used. Perhaps one would not be entitled to grumble much about the last, were it not for the fact that the materials have already been handled once to get them into the truck, so that the second handling is sheer dead loss.
In the corning rapprochement between the railways and the .mechanical transport interests (and it will certainly come, so soon as the railwaSs have got over the shock of having to face outiiide competition for the first time, and realize that they are more likely to niake money by perfecting their own organizations than by. rushing into a business which they do not understand, and which has not yet proved to be a gold mine to those who are in it), the first two causes mentioned above are likely to be removed. The remaining cause of wasted time could probably be almost eliminated by the adoption of a system of loose containers sufficiently small to be readilydealt with,by small cranes carried on the motor vehicles. These containers wouldbe of standardized dimensions and in a range of sizes, each the multiple of a universally accepted unit, so that a wagon load of them could be made up with trifling waste of
space. They could be manufactured .of sheet steel, wood or wicker, for us according to the material to be carried.
The Antiquated Method of Handling Bricks.
Contrast the journey of, say, a load of bricks as now performed krid as carried out with suitable containers. Assuming that the bricks are destined for a large building, they are now loaded by hand into the railway wagon at the briekfield; transferred by hand (each brick being picked up separately and probably passed tc D second, and even third, man before being stacked on the lorry) and unloaded by hand into a crane skip at the building iite; if they have not to be stacked on the ground first. On being raised by the crane to where the bricklayers are working, they have once more to be taken by hand from the skip and stacked on the platform. With the container system, the bricks would be put straight into a number of small containers at the brickfield stacks ; the containers would be transported bodily by a travelling crane or light railway and placed in the railway wagon ; on the arrival of the wagon at the consignee's station, the containers would be lifted out by crane and deposited on the lorry, whence the crane at the building site would raise them direct to where the bricks were required. If the bricks were not immediately wanted, the lorry's own crane could lift the containers off the vehicle and stack them alongside.
Most loose goods and materials, such as sand, gravel, coal, etc., could be conveyed from source to destination with great saving of time and labour with the help of containers, whilst containers would be equally serviceable in dealing with many classes of packed goods. Obviously, the system would not be capable of universal application, but it seems to offer many advantages. To take only one example, of the kind of thing that is going on daily all over the country, the container plan would prevent the following pitiable exhibition of antiquated methods : At a goods-station not a hundred miles from London tarmac is now being unloaded from railway wagons, and day after day live men can be seen labouring with heated picks and Shovela at removing the contents of the trucks, while an expensive motor lorry stands patiently hour after hour for its load to be put on a shovelful at a time. If the stuff had been dumped in the first place into very slightly tapered containers which had been lined with old newspapers, the containers themselves could have been lifted direct on to the lorries, and the tarmac afterwards shot out at its destination without trouble, and without unnecessary waste of time.
A " Container Exchange" May Be Necessary!
Enormous numbers of these containers would be required, it is true, but something will eventually. have to be done to reduce the handling that rail-borne materials are now obliged toreceive, and the proposal outlined is not at all an unworkable one. It should be practicable to set up an organization that would ensure that containers would be available where they were needed ; and users would be quite willing to pay fairly for their loan, if they could see, as undoubtedly they would see, a hametsertre return for their money.