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The Use of Motor Wagons in Connection with Creameries.

13th August 1908, Page 15
13th August 1908
Page 15
Page 15, 13th August 1908 — The Use of Motor Wagons in Connection with Creameries.
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The attention of Sir Thomas Cleeve, Chairman of Cleeve Brothers, Limited, of Lansdowne, Limerick, was first drawn to heavy motor vehicles by the trials of the Liverpool Selfpropelled Traffic Association, and, soon after the conclusion of the last of these pioneer tests, his company purchased three Coulthard wagons. Each successive spring to date has seen additional purchases made, as follow : 1904, two Straker lorries ; 1905, one Straker lorry and one Yorkshire lorry ; 1906, one Foden lorry ; 1907, two Foden lorries ; and 1908, one Foden lorry. The company, thus, owns to lorries, and the whole of these, save one which accidentally fell into the river, and was then put out of commission, are in regular service. The nine machines are busily occupied, both summer and winter, though it is obvious that the nature of the company's trade involves periods of slackness and pressure. At times, some of them work trips between the factory and the docks, which are about two miles off, but the great bulk of their service is of another nature, and on cross-country trips which cannot be as economically served by any other mode of transport, or with comparable despatch. Cleeve Brothers, Limited, manufactures the finest creamery butter, cocoa essences, chocolate, caramels, condensed milk, and other allied products, and its organisation throughout is on the most perfect lines. For example, about two years ago, when, owing to the rise in the price of metals, the price of tin solder advanced very greatly, the company laid down its own plant for the manufacture of the millions of tins which its trade requires, and adopted machinery which entirely avoided the use of solder, all the joints being made by special stamping and clinching tools. The factory itself, through which Sir Thomas Cleeve personally conducted the Editor of this journal on the occasion of his lecture before the limerick Chamber of Commerce, in February last, is replete with labour-saving devices, whilst cleanliness is the pervading feature of all departments. In the light of the foregoing progressive characteristics, it is no surprise to find so large a fleet of steam wagons in service. The capacity of the two tanks on each wagon is 9oo gallons, and the capacity of the tank on each trailer is sori gallons. The milk is taken by the farmers to local separating stations, and only the cream is taken to the factory. The greatest distance from Lansdowne to any separating station is about 13 miles, and the average about &glit miles, but some of the wagons do two double journeys a day. The introduction of motor wagons has enormously developed the business of Cleeve Brothers, Limited, has been of great financial benefit to the district, and has allowed a trade to be encompassed that could not have otherwise been undertaken. The farmers can now exchange any volume of new milk for an equal volume of skim milk, merely by sending a boy to the local separating station in charge of a horse and cart. They thus get full value for their produce, in the shape of money for their new milk and food for their pigs, and do not waste their time going to the market towns and spending money on drink ;. further, the quality of the butter which is made at the factory is enormously superior, and obviously much more uniform in character, than the small units of odd firkins and halffirkins which previously resulted from a multiplicity of churning methods in different cottages.

The roads in the neighbourhood of Limerick, and in the City itself, are far from good, but there has been comparatively little trouble on this score. The men who drive have all been taken from the company's own employees, and draw wages which are in keeping with the low scales that obtain in the South-West of Ireland, facts which testify to the solidity and simplicity of steam wagons. The fleet is, of course, under the supervision and control of a qualified mechanical engineer. People who send their postal orders to Limerick for sample pounds of Clecve's creamery butter, at is. 6d. the pound, seldom realise that the growth of this great industry has been so directly facilitated by motor transport during the past several years.


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