bird's eye view by the Hawk • Stylish carriage
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The latest illustration of the success of York's Snowball slogan, "If you've got it, a truck brought it" hasn't happened yet but it soon will. Just as soon as the coachbuilders to the Queen, St. Cuthberts Co-op Society of Edinburgh, finish refurbishing the royal coach which Princess Anne will use on November 14 to take her to the Abbey.
Tidying up royal coaches has been a sideline of St Cuthberts since the late Archie Prentice was transport manager. The work is now supervised by his successor, Bill Stevenson.
When Bill finishes the task, the coach will be loaded on a vehicle transporter and taken by road to London. It's the only way, of course, because it would never do if it were late or damaged in transit.
I'll bet that the "monarchy-basher," Willie Hamilton MP, will have something to say about the cost — even though the work has been carried out by a pillar of the Socialist movement, the Co-op. Still, no doubt he'll be in good company. Somebody — perhaps even Harold, who has been mumbling through his pipe recently about getting traffic off the roads — will say it should have been delivered by British Rail. My bet is that Cartransport BRS will get the job. I don't suppose it matters much to the royal consignees, so long as it arrives in time, in good order and condition.
• Full frontal
Talking of road v rail, there is a ring of truth about the story, now going the rounds, that National Bus Company had a last-minute change of heart about promoting its National Travel network with the slogan "Why not travel by coach and see the fronts of the houses for a change?"
• Hotel Success
Selsdon Park seems a magnet for those who plan success. Sir Alf Ramsey and England football squad have planned victories there in the past; Ted Heath Ind the Tory Party planned their election victory there five years ago.
Now Thomas Meadows, the freight brwarders, are no doubt hoping that nagic holds good this weekend when 70 of :heir employees from all over the world attend a conference to analyse any shortcomings in the company's international network in the past 12 months and, more important, to plan the activities of the International Group for the coming year. Delegates have come from as far afield as Auckland and Vancouver, Antwerp and Hong Kong.
Part of the plans are aimed at putting the group more in the public eye. Chief executive Jim Featherston told me this week: "We're the oldest freight forwarders in the world, and perhaps for this reason there is an impression that we are slow and oldfashioned. Nothing could be farther from the truth, and from next weekend we shall be displaying our new image to the public and customers alike."
Meadows in pastures new?
• Do you reverse?
Even with technical reassurances, there is something unnatural — and therefore unnerving — about selecting reverse in an automatic gearbox while travelling at speed in a forward direction. This, however, produced no disasters when undertaken in the latest quiet version of the Leyland National last week — because the works demonstrator in which I was travelling is fitted with the new electronic fully-automatic control gear for the SCG gearbox. And although this is not really designed for high-speed changes of direction, but rather to provide a handy to-and-fro manoeuvring facility, the clever little devils in the new auto gear wait until the bus comes to rest before reversing direction, so speed is no bar to using the device this way.
The control system is a "Leyland Leyland" design, if you know what I mean, and it's mated at present to a five-speed close-ratio SCG box, but it can be used with the four-speed version.
No doubt fleet operators will be eager to try the new control gear in their own vehicles when it becomes available, as by cutting off the top end of the rpm range in going through the gears it offers better mpg and a noise reduction too.
• Conversation piece
This National — of the type being tried by London Transport — is still basically the 77 dbA quiet bus shown at the TRRL demo earlier this year, but now has "productionized" soundproofing material. It also has a carpeted floor, not for quietness but to get operators' reaction to the wall-towall look. I know all the objections to carpeted buses, but it certainly does make the interior look welcoming.
I hadn't ridden in this version of the National before, and I must say it is impressively hushed. Even under acceleration, one could conduct a conversation from front to back of the empty saloon without shouting. In fact, it has constant "muzak" on the PA equipment to preserve the confidentiality of passengers' chat.
• Pay-off line
You think the driver/wage problem is acute over here? Driver Walter Meding, who accompanied the Greyhound coach which is now at the Yeates coach show, at Loughborough, gave me some figures last week that put our situation into perspective.
Walter is normally on a regular run between New York and Washington, his home base. He works a 28+-hour week and is paid £100 (yes — pounds). Drivers who work maximum hours — up to 70 hours every eight days — can earn as much as £150 a week. Yet even at these rates, driver recruitment is difficult.
Which all goes to show that how much you earn is not really the important thing; it is how much everyone else is earning.
• Berliet or bust
Now that Berliet has revealed its initial plans for truck sales in Britain, I can let you into a secret.
The UK Berliet operator who applies to the Slough hq for a con-rod may well get a bra by return of post. His cup will be thus running over — for the simple reason that, while Citroen and Berlei-the-bra-makers were within a few hundred yards of each other there was no problem, but now that Berliet, too, is at the Citroen address it's driving the local post office crazy.
I'm told that the PO solution pro tern is to deliver all Berliet and Berlei mail to the latter, who then sort the truck from the bust, so to speak, and pop over with it.
• Beneficial inflation
I'm happy to say that the Goodyear balloon race at the LDoY Finals this year resulted in £31 being taken for charity. A cheque has been sent to TGWU general secretary Jack Jones for the union's Littleport Home.