• A DUAL-PURPOSE COACH BODY.
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A New L.G.O.C. Design which Enables a Passenger Vehicle to be used in all Weathers Without Discomfort to Passengers.
AN INTERESTING dual-purpose passenger vehicle has been designed by Mr. S. Gage, of 16, Twyford Avenue, .Acton, London, W.3, and the London General Omnibus Co., Ltd. It is capable of rapid conversion from an open touring coach with ordinary Cape-cart hood to an omnibus. An important feature of the design, which appears to have been the subject of careful thought, is a rail which tops the main body shell and which serves as the basis for mounting either the supports for the hood sticks or for the more or less rigid body of the bus.
This rail, which may extend completely around the upper edge of the body of the open-touring coach, is drilled at intervals for the fixing bolts, the holes being provided with bushes, and so shaped, or of such a. size, that a certain amount of contraction or expansion, either of the foundation rail or of the superstructure, may take place without affecting the means of attachmeat.
In the case of the hood a supplementary rail designed to rest directly upon the foundation rail already mentioned, arid which is attached thereto by bolts which have comparatively large flat .plates as heads, carries brackets at intervals which support. a continuous Teeishaped rail, along which the hood sticks can be propelled.
In the drawing which accompanies the specification, the hood is of the type which folds into a recess between the driver and the dashboard, but. it should be understood that the arrangement of the parts specified is not necessarily confined to use in conjunction *ith a hood of that type.
The bus body is mounted upon a similar rail, to that which supports the hood sticks, and may be secured to the body of the vehicle by the same or similar bolts arid in the same manner.
1340 It will be gathered that with this arrangement a vehicle can very quickly be converted from one perposa o the other without in any way affecting its general appearance.
Trolley-buses for Nottingham.
The tram.vays committee of the Nottingham Corporation has under consideraticn several important developments, of which the principal is the provision of trolley-buses upon roads the width of which precludes working upon
other than single lines wi..1 loops. No definite deaision has yet been arrived at in regard to the matter, but arrangements in vogue at. Birmingham have been inspected, with the result that a very favourable iinpression has been formed as to the possibilities of the trackless system of passenger transport in its application to Nottingham.
For the purpose it it proposed to utilize the Nottingham Road and Wilford Road routes, where often inordinate delays are entailed by the present system of loops. At the same time it is suggested locally that the committee might with substantial advantage extend its present fleet of.motorbuses.