OPINIONS FROM OTHERS
Page 69
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Obtaining Petrol and Oil from Coal.
7'he Editor, THE COMMERCINL MOTOR.
12807] Sir,--.-It is regrettable that Lord Hartington, M.P., should, in the course of his presidential address to the Society of British Gas Industries, have gone out of his way to say that low-temperature carbonization "does not and cannot offer any short cut to a solution of the difficulties which have beset the Coal trade in the past, as some optimistic politicians or interested financier hare affirmed."
Speaking neither as an optimistic politician nor as .an interested financier, I may say that I firmly believe that low-temperature carbonization offers . the shortest known cut to the removal of coal-trade
• depression, also to the stimulation of the petrol, oil and heavy industries. It may not be generally known that plant is now being erected in 'Yorkshire capable of cracking into petrol and fuel oil all the lowtemperature tar oils likely to be produced in Great Britain for some years to come. It should, therefore, be obvious that with this profitable new outlet for byproducts the prospects of low-temperature carbonization are materially improved and the rapid expansion of the demand for small Coal and slack is assured.'
Here are the economic facts. At the present time we are consuming about ,40,000,000 tons of coal per annum for domestic use, and we are importing from abroad about 800,000,000 gallons of petrol and a vast amount of fuel oil.
If the bulk of the coal intended for domestic consumption, instead of having its valuable petrol and oil burned in the grate or wasted up the chimney, were treated by low-temperature carbonization, the collieries would have to produce about 60,000,000 tons of coal and there would be obtained from the oil byproducts a very substantial proportion of the whole of our present imports of fuel oil.
,Practically the whole of the money thus saved would go to benefit the colliery industry, and a vast army of laboup would be necessary to deal with the oil.
If any further reply to Lord Hartington's pessimism is needed, it is cqntained in the fact that the two leading gas companies in London are both embarking on the production of smokeless fuel by the process about which he recommends so Much caution.—Yours W. A. BRISTOW, Managing Director, for Low Temperature Carbonisation, Ltd. London, SAVA.
Strangling Road Transport.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
r28081 Sir,—I fully agree with your article in The Commercial Motor dated May 8th, on the subject of "Strangling Road Transport to Support the Railways." It is quite true all three political parties are crying on behalf of the railways, which is to the detriment of our modern road motor services. It makes one perfectly sick to read in the papers these days their continual whinings about railway trucks. It is time the public took up the cudgels on behalf of road services.
There can be doubt about it, the antiquated railway companies have had a handsome time and must now give way, in many respects, to the new era in transport. There was ho loud outcry in the Press or by politicians when the tramways had to meet motorbus competition.—Yours faithfully, H. FIPRIN. London, S,W.3.
The Cost of Road Haulage.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR.
[2809] Sir,—I read through some of your Tables of Running Costs published in one of the issues of The Commercial Motor, I believe for January, 1927. In Table IV you give hauliers' figures at Is. 44. for 400 miles for a 5-ton lorry and 1s. 9d. for a 10-ton lorry. Would. the following figures be correct?
To run a 5-ton lorry 400 miles at is. 4d. £26 13 4 Fifty weeks " ... £1,333 6 8 Operating cost of the vehicle for 50 weeks £565 1 0 I take it that the operating costs include fuel, lubricants, tyres, maintenance, depreciation, driver's wages, mate's ditto, rent and rates, insurance and interest. From the above figures it would appear that the profit over the period for one 5-ton lorry equals £768 5s. 8d.
I did not see licences accounted for in your operating charges. If this were included it would reduce the Profit. What item or items does maintenance cover? Do you consider 400 miles per week is about the average haulage distance?
I have been out of England since January, 1927, and only recently returned, and it was in a place some 1,500 miles from Melbourne that I picked up The Commercial Motor in question about four months ago.
Perhaps you would kindly let me know what a 5-ton lorry will earn for, say, 400 miles per week and the cost to operate over that distance?
I did hear something about lorries being run on crude oil at very much less cost than petrol.
I am ordering The Commercial Motor every week, as I consider it by far the best publication on the sub
ject.—Yours faithfully, R. RENNIE. London, S.W.1.
[The tables to which you refer are now out of date and we enclose with this letter a copy of the current issue. The hauliers' figures, however, are still is. 4d. a mile for a 5-tonner running 400 miles a week. The total cost of -operation per week you will lind in the appropriate table 'to be £17 148. and the cost for the year, or 50 weeks, is therefore 1885. The items included in that cost are those enumerated in the top two portions of the table, namely, fuel, lubricants, tyres, maintenance, depreciation, licences, driver's wages, garage rent and rates, insurance and interest. There is nothing for the wages of a mate, but licences are included. The gross profit from the operation of such a lorry is therefore £448 a year and not £768.
.To•ascertain the net profit you will have to deduct the wages of the mate. and sundry other business items, such as postages, telegrams, telephones, advertising, allowances to man when sleeping away, from home, and similar expenditure.
Maintenance covers all the expenditure directly attributable to the lorry and not covered by other Items on the list given above. It includes the regular overhaul and sundry expenses, such as cleaning, etc.
There is no figure for average mileage that we can give you. Everything depends upon what class of work the vehicle does, and although it is possible, as you suggest, for a lorry fully occupied to do more than 400 miles a week, the general experience of haulage contractors is that the mileage is less than 400.
Lorries with crude-oil engines are not yet in use in sufficient numbers for us to venture an opinion as to their present practicability for haulage work, although we consider that they have a great future. —S.T.R.]