BR MAY USE ABEL AIR SYSTEM ON loW FERRY
Page 39
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Swop bodies shown in service
TWO representatives of British Railways, Southern Region, attended a demonstration last week of the Abelson Abel Air swop body system (described in COMMERCIAL MOTOR, December 23) at the Birmingham Perry Barr depot of SPD Ltd., to investigate its potential for use on the Isle of Wight ferry service.
Standard rigid vehicles would be used to transport the demountable containers to the ferry and a compressed air supply on the boat would operate the air bellows of the two built-in lifting units of the container to unload and load the body at the ferry terminals.
Container-carrying vehicles would be operated in place of articulated outfits with consequent savings, it is envisaged, in maintenance and capital costs. Advantages would include the use of the standard platform rigids for carrying normal mixed loads when they were not engaged in container traffic.
Applications to road/rail traffic may also be considered, the advantage in this case being that the containers could be parked by a slave vehicle at the depot for collection by virtually any type of vehicle with suitable platform dimensions.
At the SPD depot, four 7-ton rigids with skeleton frames are being operated in conjunction with six swop bodies, soon to be increased to nine vehicles and 20 containers.
The bodies are of aluminium construction, mounted on a robust steel sub-frame, and measure 17 ft. long by 8 ft. wide by 7 ft. 6 in. high. The weight of the bodies is 32 cwt., of which well under 1 ton represents the "additional" weight of the lifting units, heavy-duty sub-frame and support legs. Compared with an hydraulicallyoperated swop body of the same capacity (elevated by a vehicle-mounted mechanism) the weight saving is considerably more than a ton.
Abel Air bodies will be offered in lengths of 16 ft. to 20 ft. but it is pointed out by Abelson technicians that the hydraulic system is more suitable for application to vehicles carrying containers in the 20 ft. category.
During the demonstration, an Abel Air body was loaded in under three minutes and unloaded in about the same time, which corresponds to normal operations in the depot. Employing swop bodies should enable SPD to dispense with night loading (only rigid vehicles are operated by the branch) and it is notable that the bodies facilitate loading because the platform height does not vary during the loading operation.
The working pressure of the 12 in. air bellows is 100 p.s.i. and lifting is readily performed with the aid of a depot supply line, the vehicle compressed-air system or a bottle carried on the vehicle. The height of the sub-frame when the body is parked is about 41 in.
The legs of an Abel Air body, together with the diagonal braces, are moved outwards before they are lowered to the ground and this gives ample latitude for manoeuvring the vehicle into position.
Although the SPD bodies are equipped with guide members, these will be removed in due course as they are considered unnecessary. To the experienced driver, the absence of guide members could be an advantage.
ACP EXPANDS
Austin Crompton Parkinson Electric Vehicles Ltd., of South Wigston, Leicester, is to increase production of electric road vehicles. It is to build a new works at Tredegar, Mon.