Society of Motor Omnibus Engineers.
Page 8
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Discussion on the Paper by Mr. Worby Beaumont.
(Continued from page 569.)
Mr. Douglas Mackenzie said there were several extremely controversial points in Mr. Beaumont's paper. On the historical and remote, Mr. Beaumont reigned supereme. Although they all looked upon him as the authority on the historical part of the subject, yet, as far as the immediate past was concerned, the speaker was going to venture to differ from him slightly. The experience must of those present had had did not tend towards the single-deck omnibus nor in the direction of a reduction of the present size of the omnibus. If the police regulations only allowed it, they would find it advisable to use a much larger unit. There was -no doubt that the police had done a serious injury to the motor-omnibus industry by imposing the present limits to the Size of the motor omnibus body. At the time the regulations were promulgated, there were ideas afloat for increasing the size, and plans were already prepared for omnibuses to nar.-y 40 passengers. These would have keen much better paying vehicles, and would not have increased the weight materially. There would have been no increase in length, the same chassis would have gone in and a rather stiffer body would have been introduced. There was no doubt the police were rather frightened at that time by the idea of top-heaviness, and they seemed to have the notion that one only had to push a motorbus in order to make it fall over sideways. As a matter of fact, there had only been one case of a motor omnibus toppling over, and then that was under such conditions that a single-deck or a horse omnibus would have toppled over. There was no reason why there should not he an increase of four passengers on the upper deck even with the present construction and then, with two more inside, they would have made up the number to forty. Since their last meeting, the financial results of the London General Omnibus Company and the London Road Car Company had been published and everybody was saying that it was because no one could make the motor omnibus pay that these companies had been so unsuccessful. From the reports, it was impossible to tell whether the loss had been upon the motor omnibuses or upon the horse vehicles, and the companies were careful not to let it be known. Undoubtedly, if the companies could have increased the capacity to 40 passengers, at the time of the rush hours of the day, it would have had a material effect upon the financial side of the question. It was suggested that the police had had a very considerable influence upon the motor omnibus and were the cause of some of the improvements of the present day. They had had some inftuence,• it was true, and they had forced some makers who were using plain bearings to use ball-bearings, and in other ways they had made improvements. But those improvements had been forced. In the natural order of things, there would have been an evolution of the best vehicle. The police had had a cOnsiderable influence in improving the design, but that irthuenee was very often overrated. If they had proc.eeeed on ;business lines and with more tact and discretion, and had -not refused vehicles in the wholesale manner which they had 'done, there would have been improvements on more economical rand on -sounder lines. The travelling public had lost, from The want of facilities which the companies were prepared to give them, and were out of pocket to the extent of about a hundred thousand pounds owing to the action of the Metropolitan Mr. Thomas Parker, jun., thought the choice of the title of the paper under discussion was an unfortunate one from a professional -point of view,. Mr. Beaumont being a consulting engineer of the highest standing, and holding various important appointments, very naturally disclaimed the responsibility for the title and gave a review of the past, rather than a forecast of the future developments of the public-service, motor vehicle. A discourse on combustion or ignition, or both, or on the princi;ale of the lever as applied to the transmission of power in mechanical vehicles, would have been much more valuable from _,:cr able a lec.timer and engineer as Mr. Beaumont and would not have prejudiced him in his official capacity in any way. The discussion, so far, had been mainly on four points : police ; speed ; fares ; and the form or type of bodies. His personal experience with the Scotland Yard officials had always been of the best. From the highest to the lowest, he had invariably met with civility and courtesy. They must all agree that the police tackled this, at one time, overwhelming omnibus problem with a masterly hand, in fact, better than most of them cared to admit, because they knew that most of the police had acquired their knowledge of engineering very quickly. A great deal of friction would certainly be relieved if the " noise " committee comprised more competent engineers, but, whoever the Committee might be, their advent had caused a great change in the general running of the buses, and, although in doing so they had tied up a great deal of money, it was just possible that they had prevented an even larger amount from being squandered on useless vehicles to satisfy the greed of company promoters. On the speed question, he entirely agreed with Mr. Beaumont and the new police regulation. To his opinion, no bus should be allowed to travel at a speed exceeding 12 miles per hour. It was not only disastrous from the shareholders' point of view, but it was positively dangerous to exceed that speed. That So few accidents had occurred spoke volumes for the material employed by the various makers in the construction of the vehicles. In suppcu Ling this wise regulation, he did not infer that the power of the bus should be much. reduced. The increased margin of power due to altered gear ratio should he retained for the purpose of rapid acceleration, and to eliminate the frequent changing of gears, and also to maintain a good average speed. The question of fares could be safely left with the various companies. Experience would soon show how far they could go, one way or another, in this matter. This "body" factor was, to his mind, sufficiently important to form the subject of a special paper. From an economical point of view, that is, general depreciation, wear and tear, ease of manipulation and convenience of passengers, he submitted there was no ground for argument against the adoption of single-deck vehicles, and nothing short of an actual trial as to passenger returns would upset the authors' suggestion. He would go a step further, and suggest that, for certain hours of the day when traffic demands it, a single-deck trailer might with advantage be attached to the single-deck motorbus, after the manner of the Renard train, that is to say, arranged to accept its power for propulsion from the engine and transmit the same through its own wheels. There was no reason at all why all the wheels should not bear a fair share in transmission, in steering, and in load carrying. It might be urged that length and inconvenience would kill such a conveyance. On the contrary, it would not be anything like so long as a coach and four horses. There were numbers of steam wagons running about London daily with trailers, in fact, they had grown so used to seeing them that they passed almost unnoticed. Sp, also, would single-deck motorbuses with their trailers quickly form a part of London's huge passengercarrying machine. Although he was not a Jules Verne, it might be all incentive to others to give their views if he drew a word picture of his ideas of the vehicle of the immediate future. It seemed certain that the internal combustion engine would, in the two or four cycle form, bold its own for some years to come. He did not think for one moment that they had reached the final design of this class of engine, nor the highest point of efficiency, and it was probable that the next stage in Ciesign would do away with valyes and valve tappets, or, probably, substitute revolving valves of the Conies type for the present mushroom form. Cast steel or malleable iron would take the place of aluminium in the crankcase and it would not be cast in two pieces, but would be provided with ample inspection doors. Longer, larger, and slower running engines would take the place of the present high-speed ones. Spring adjustment would attend to the wear on the connecting-rod brasses, and keep them from knocking, hall bearings would tglie the place of the bronze main bearings. The present form of high-tension ignition must give way to a substantial form of magneto or dynamo. He meant somethiug substantial, not a telephone generator, and, possibly, a permanent form of make and break would be provided inside each cylinder head, actuated by the piston as it comes to the top of its stroke, in place of delicate tappets and mechanism for advancing and retarding the point of ignition. The governors would be governors, and form part of the engine, not an afterthought. A separate throttle va:ve would provide for hand regulation, acting independently of the governor. The flywheel would be designed to accumulate and transmit the intermittent forces of combustion and not to fit the frame of the vehicle and suit the width of engine and gear-box bearers, as it was, in most Cases, at present.