AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

Those of our friends with a humourous turn of mind

13th March 1913, Page 17
13th March 1913
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 17, 13th March 1913 — Those of our friends with a humourous turn of mind
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords : Drayman, Charringtons

have not neglected to take advantage of the obvious opportunity afforded to them by the choice of title which we made for our previous series of articles dealing with service ex periences. The " One Day's Work,'' however, of which we have often written, is frequently a very hard one indeed, and, as a rule, entails long hours and careful observation, under circumstances which are not always of the most comfortable nature. "One Day's Work" has, in the past, proved itself so good a title for the special class of article which this journal has popularized with users, non-users and manufacturers alike, that we have felt no compunction in initiating once again a series of writings under the same heading.

Bernas and Brewers.

It was necessary to start somewhere. and, to start welt up the alphabet, we decided to choose a Berna, and, if pos sible, one engaged on brewery work. A short parley with both Mr. Yarwood. the Berne manager, and Mr. Townshend, who occupies a similar position with the X.Y.Z. Transport Ltd., an enterprising haulage concern with which many of our readers will be familiar, soon resulted in the fixing up of the necessary arrangements for us to accompany one of the latter company's wagons during a regular day's work, whilst delivering beer for Charrington's Brewery.

We had for some while been looking forward to an opportunity for a run of some length on one of the big Berna five-tonners, and this occasion seemed to offer the necessary facilities. As for brewers' deliveries, we have, on previous occasions, of course, written of services concerned with them in various parts of the country, but it seemed that there might yet be much to learn in this respect. As events turned out, the day proved a most informative one.

Horses Beaten on Points.

At the end of the day's work, we definitely confirmed our previous opinion that the brewer is bound to adopt motor haulage, at any rate for all but his shortest deliveries, solely on the question of economy and efficiency of service.

There need be no question for him of the finer arguments which are often of an potent a nature when dealing with the question of the supersession of the horse in connection with other trades. A brewer is not greatly concerned to adopt motor haulage because some rival firm .has done so, and the advertisement value of the motorvan is perhaps of little more value to him than is the possession of a fine, well-turned-out, if cumbersome, team of dray horses; but when it comes to the question of the length of mileage possible in one day, the number of deliveries which can be effected, and the general all-round heating that the big motorvan can give to the steadygoing horsed dray, then the brewer, conservative though he is, has no alternative but to be convinced of sheer hard necessity. From the simple point of view of business economy, the brewer has to admit, immediately he has put it to the test, that motor haulage is a much better proposition than the beat corresponding horsed delivery for most of his work. These statements are not made without proper sense of their definiteness, What we have to write hereafter, we trust will leave little doubt in the minds of our readers that we are not speaking without our book.

Before the Streets were Aired.

One day last week, a representative of this journal, in consequence of the arrangements which we have mentioned, arrived at Charrington's Brewery in the Mile End Road just as day was dawning, at 6 a.m., haying turned out to catch an "early workman" soon after 4.30 from a distant suburb. The London streets at that hour bear an aspect which is quite unfamiliar to the average Londoner. Crossing London Bridge, the only traffic consisted of a number of London's motor mail vans andc-strings of slow rumbling wagons, with tired-looking horses drawing them, on their way between the markets. The only bright spot in all the warehouses on the riverside at 5.30 a.m. was Billingsgate Market—itself a brilliant blaze of light.

Friday morning is the busiest in all the week for brewers' deliveries, for obvious reasons. As a drayman told us, "Beer is not made to keep," and the publican wants his new stock of barrelled liquid for the week-end. Friday, as a rule, therefore, is a fiveo'clock morning; loading up commences at that hour. and at six `the five-ton Beina—one of three with their cargoes on board—was ready to leave the gates of the great brewery in Mile End Road, which premises have been immortalized, as many of our readers may remember, by Walter Besant in his novel, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," albeit, written in pre-motor days.

Clumsy Backing of Horsed Vans.

The yard at this hour is choked with horsed drays, all similarly occupied, and taking on board loads of barrels, hogsheads, firkins, or kilderkins, and here we soon observed much that was to the disadvantage of horsed transport. Fine drivers as these draymen are, they cannot back their lumbering wagons. and the huge horses which have to haul them, with anything like the exactitude or absence of fuss and bother which is characteristic of the manipulation of a modern motorvan. The yard was full, as we say, of horsed wagons, and we witnessed quite a lot of minor trouble amongst the draymen with these wagons when they began to move off. For ourselves. we drew straight out of the yard with the ease and certainty which a driver obtains from the handling of a well-built motor-propelled vehicle. We had five tons—and a good five tons— railway tons—it was, too—of beer on board, in casks varying from the big hogshead which, as our old school books told us, contains 54 gallons, or 1 barrels or three kilderkins, down to the "Joey," the smallest barrel of them all, full of finings, the stuff which is used for the clarifying of the casked ale, and to the uninitiated, looks as if it were quite incapable of clarifying anything whatever.

To Highgate Before Breakfast. We Arrive Too Early.

We did not know, until we arrived at the brewery, what was to be our clay's journey, althoegh we knew it was to be a fairly lengthy one. At the despatch hay, however, we learned that we were first of all to take a load up to Highgate, and after passing the minute scrutiny of the front gatekeeper—a trusty servant of the company, who was obviously under the impression that we were endeavouring to carry several more hogsheads than we had on our waybill—we pulled out into the Mile End Road, just as the morning was breaking, fine and cold. The roads were clearer than usual, largely on account of the absence of passenger traffic, and we arrived at Highgate, after cutting diagonally across North-east London, at 6.55 a.m., outside the Brookfield Hotel. Now, it would take a three-horse team two hours to get to Highgate, and they would probably have journeyed there twice with a two or three-ton load, by four o'clock in the afternoon. As it was, we were back in the brewery at ten o'clock, and that after irritating delay, because we arrived Leo early for public-house managers who had only contrived to get to bed by 2 a.m , after the long business hours of the day before.

Compare the efficiency of delivery on this one particular trip as between horse and motor. We carried a load on the one five-ton Berlin which would have kept two three-horse teams busy on that journey to Highgate, and one team would have taken all day on the double journey. Our speed with the full load, which, as a matter of fact, consisted of eight hogsheads of ale, seven barrels of "bitter," 15 kils. of porter, 10 firkins of stout and porter, and two "Joeys" of finings, was at times well over the statutory 12 m.p.h. It took about ten minutes to unload that miscellaneous collection of barrels, and the following two hours were occupied in waiting for the publican to allow us access to the cellars, and, when this was obtained, in delivering the full barrels and taking away the empty ones—to the obstruction of pedestrians. A liatch of Small Deliveries for South London.

When we arrived back at the brewery, our mileometer record showed that we had covered approximately 12 miles. Our return load consisted of nine hogsheads, 12 kilderkins, 10 firkins, and two

Joeys." Arrived in the yard, we found that we had it all to ourselves none of the horsed teams were yet back, even from the short deliveries, so that we were able to take on our second load, -destined for about half-a-dozen "houses" iu South London, without further delay. Wratten, who is a driver of no mean skill, hacked the big Rerun into position with one turn of his steering wheel, and a fine object lesson was afforded in the relative " controllability "—to use a hateful word--of horsed and motor transport, after thc painful backing of worried

• hories in the same loading bay. For the second delivery, we found that. we had a large number of small barrels, and these were to be split up into six deliveries, involving a good deal of manual work and a number of stoppages, conditions which should, at any rate, serve -onr purpose quite well, as we fully realized that it is on delivery journeys with numerous stops that the problem is hardest,.

A Well-handled Lorry.

We left for the second journey at 10.40 a-m., and were able, on our way out to Sydenham, to set our own value on the running of the machine with which we were engaged. No. 9 has a comparatively new chassis, and should, in any -case, give a good account of itself. . We now have the opinion that the Berna is a chassis of distinct merit for heavy haulage purposes. The big four-cylinder erigine, rated at 35 40 li.p., with a bite of 121) mm., and a stroke of 140 mm., purrs like a high-grade pleasure car, -and there is a something about the Berne carburetter, simple of construction as :t is, that renders the engine particularly flexible in traffic and under heavy loads. 'Gear changes were almost noiseless, and clutch manipulation was far and away ahead of much that is seen on motorbus chassis franked by Scotland Yard. Driver AVratten took us round some intricate corners at the back of Sydenham with that big five-tonner and its weighty load of barrels with the facility and eel.-tainty of the driver of a London taxicab.

• The Berns runs with great smoothness .under a heavy load.

We Help (7) the Draymen.

We ran through the Rotherhithe Tunnel at slow speed behind much leisurely horsed traffic, and so out across the southern suburbs to a public-house in Sydenliam. The pulley was soon out on the tailboard, and the small delivery ot barrels and flirkins was promptly lowered into the cellar. The next delivery was hut a few hundred yards on, to an offlicence house, and in each case we had to take on board empties of about the same capacity as the " tubs" which we had left. At Sydenham, our mileage, since leaving the brewery first thing in the morning, was 20. We then made a run tc an off-licence house in Wordsworth Road, Penge, which Mr. King, the licensee, proudly told us he has occupied for 21 ■ears, and on that account is the oldest licence-holder in Pcnge. It did not take us long to deliver five or six casks here, and we promptly set out for South Norwood, where two more batches of casks had to be left., the first in Addison Road, Portland Road, and the second at the London Tavern, Whitehorse Lane, Thornton Heath, at which places we took on corresponding empties. At the latter house, our representative, much impressed with the skilful haudlinf;

of heavy casks by the two genial draymen who were part of the crew on this trip, persuaded them to let him try his hand at lowering a cask into the cellar. He succeeded in harnessing a barrel quite successfully, but in lowering it on to the pulley, preparatory to letting it down into the cellar, something unforeseen happened, the barrel slipped out of the rope, and went helter-skelter, beer and all, into the cellar ; much to his relief, the barrel seemed little the worse, although the consignee, who was in the neighbourhood at the time of its fall, did not appear to appreciate at its full value the rapid nature of the delivery from Charringtons in this instance.

Side-loading an Advantage.

By this time, the beautiful weather, which had obtained so far, gave way to mist and slight rain, and the last delivery in Croydon was effected some time after 4 p.m., at "The Mitre," and here we were able to see the advantage of the class of coachwork which was built on to this lorry, for it was found runvenient to unload sideways, lowering the side boards of the body for this purpose. This, with an ordinary dray, would have been impoesible, and have necessitated

shifting more than half the load of barrels in order to get at the last few full ones. This advantageous method is the subject of one of our illustrations. Taking on board a further batch of empties, a straight run back to the brewery was made, and there it was found that the mileage was about 40— considerably less than we had antici

pated. Nevertheless, it has to be remembered that we had carried loads in excess of what would have been tackled by two three-horse drays. For a 20-mile journey, a brewer's dray is expected lo occupy not less than 12 hours, and indeed the average speed of a brewer's drayhorse should not exceed 3 m.p.h., if the animal is to suffer no lasting strain.

It requires little more comment than the record we here make of the ability to deliver considerable tonnage over a greatly-increased radius, to convince our readers of the superiority of motor haule,ge for by far the larger proportion of a brewer's deliveries. The three Berms already in service have resulted in the sale of 12 horses, i.e., four three-horse dray teams. They do very mush more work than the 12 They did.

Costs Including All Charges.

With regard to costs, little, of course, can be shown as the result of one day's work, but, in consultation with Mr. Yarwood, we find that he agrees that our estimate of 11.18d. per mile all told, on a basis of 300 miles per week, for a five-tonner, with petrol at 13d. per gallon, and tires at 2.5d. per mile, is very close to the mark for all average work, providing, of course, there are no unusual conditions.

We understand that Colonel Charrington is very pleased indeed with the amount of work which can be tackled by these big Eernas, and it is on the cards that very considerable developments in this respect may take place.

Deliveries Might be Speeded Up.

If we were asked to criticize these modern methods adopted by Charringtons and other old-established brewery concerns, we should say that considerable time might be saved in connection with the actual deliveries themselves. The draymen work very hard, but they frequently cannot get to work for some

while when they arrive. At present, the terminal delays are on the same scale as pertained when it was advantageous to give the horses a rest. Speeding up at both ends of the journeys may well save the work of one wagon in every three, and this is a very big consideration for a prospective owner.


comments powered by Disqus