bird's eye view
Page 36
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
by the Hawk • Merc wins
There's just about time left to visit the Mercedes Benz show at Bredbury Motors, Stockport. It finishes tomorrow and is part of an expansion programme by Merc's UK distributors Normand Commercials. Of course the day you should have been there was Tuesday when Miss Great Britain was in attendance. I wonder how much attention was paid to the other models on display that day.
Talking of firsts—which we were— Normand took first prize in this year's Sheffield Mayoral Parade with a Mere L406/35R tipper supplied by Hoffmans of Sheffield.
• Russian down-time
Demurrage, standing costs, dead running —do you feel the hair rise on the back of your neck at the very mention of these terrors of the transport industry? It may help a little to know that your Russian counterparts are suffering also. It's not all sputnics and cosmonauts behind the curtain. In Soviet News this week I see that "Industrial exterprises" continued to allow the idle time of wagons to exceed the set standards. In other cases "the lorries available were used more productively than in the past but there were still many idle runs". Materials carried in the USSR were coal, oil, ores, metals, mouldings, grain and timber. Not a spot of Siberian salt in sight.
• Persevering lady
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again" is the maxim of 36-year-old Eunice Beagrie of Manor Street, Middlesbrough. Early this year United Auto decided to employ women drivers on its buses and Mrs Beagrie lost little time in applying for the job. Unfortunately, after a course of driving lessons she failed her test. Undaunted, she tried again, and on the last day of July took her test—passing without difficulty.
Before taking her first load of passengers out on the road Mrs Beagrie said she did not feel nervous, but would have to wait and see what she felt like once at the wheel. At least she was given a chance to prove her skill, unlike Sandra Holt of Sowerby Bridge, who brought a third of the town's buses off the road when she began driving for Halifax Passenger Transport. Geoffrey Hilditch, the town's transport manager, said he could see no cause for the busmen's action. He had travelled on a bus driven by 23-year-old Miss Holt and found no reason why she should not drive buses. I understand that Miss Holt has gone back to conducting until the National Joint Industrial Council arbitrates—I hope in her favour.
• Cover story
Have I told you about the strange sight on a lay-by on A20 where a lorry sits overnight with a tarpaulin under its front wheels? It's true—the driver folds the cover, places it in front of the vehicle and then runs the vehicle forward until the front wheels come to rest on it. With the engine switched off, the brake applied and the vehicle locked up the driver then goes home safe in the knowledge that before they can "nick" the sheet the thieves will have to shift four and a half tons of lorry.
• Another freshman
When Michael Heseltine accepted the invitation to become president of the Guild of Transport Managers he either didn't expect an early election or if he did he apparently did not anticipate a Government post. After only a few months in the president's chair he has tendered his resignation because of his new Parliamentary duties. His successor is another self-confessed new boy to transport. He is Graham Simons, managing director of his own company in London Fruit Exchange.
What a nice compliment he pays to the industry in his first public statement: "I may at times feel lost among so many experts." It makes a nice change to have one's values recognized, but take heart GS, just at the moment most transport men feel lost. The Guild has taken steps to ensure that it does not lose its way in the maze of transport legislation, having chosen for its emblem a wheel surrounding the four points of the compass.
• Marshall Red
Observing that Coventry City Transport's buses are now being painted an attractive red and ivory livery in place of the former
rather drab maroon and cream made n think of the exotic names the coloui might be called. Morella cherry an Shetland ivory at least, might fit the bil I thought. When I asked Coventry's g.n Derek Hyde what the colours were, I fe just a little deflated "Oh, Marshall red an off-white", he said. Why Marshall red? Th answer, I am assured, is that the colour WE chosen from several brews mixed by th foreman painter—whose name happens t be Marshall! Anyway, the new livery is distinct improvement.
• Fruit machine
We've all heard of boxes, rigids and bender when talking about vehicles; the hgv licenc covers eight different types of vehicles an there are many ex empted types. One variatio I read about last week in a London evenin paper and which seems to have slippe through the Ministry net, is the Banana.
In the "sit vacs" column a prospectiv employer was seeking a banana driver/sale man. Perhaps this will be the star release a this year's show.
The ad did not describe the vehicle nc did it say slippery customer preferred .
• Brum or London? —again!
Will London Transport (Central Row Services) win the Castrol Shield again? The: did last year, when the London team score( 184 for eight wickets against Birminghan City Transport, who made 105 all out Birmingham, did I say? This year they migh turn the tables, because the team from Wes Midlands PTE (Birmingham) is also in th, finals of the National Public Service Vehicle Undertakings Cricket Competition again The match is to be played at Headingle: Cricket Ground, Leeds, starting at 2 p.m on Tuesday, August 25.