Correspondence.
Page 17
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Horse v. Motor.
The Editor, "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."
Sir,1 note on page 227 of your issue of May 25th you invite correspondence on the use of commercial motors. I follow with much interest week by week the descriptions of same given in your well-got-up paper, and felt interested
in your millers' issue, as I have four milling friends using
steam tractors to draw wagons. Now the self-contained steam wagon would on some rounds be more handy for getting in and out of confined spaces, but flour, etc., has to be delivered to many bakeries off the main roads, and the tractor gets its load there by the use of the familiar grips on its driving wheels, by chain, or winding drum and wire rope. The small wheel steam wagon with its load on its back, devoid of large diameter wheels and winding drum, simply cannot get to these places. A wagon for these country rounds requires driving wheels of 6ft. or 7ft. diameter, grip irons to fix to tyres for soft ground, and a winding drum and rope if a trailing wagon is taken. Road locomotive makers have long known that all these features are a necessity, but it appears that motor-wagon builders have yet to design a machine on these lines. For the haul age of building materials, unless a wagon has very large wheels and grip irons, it cannot compete with the handy horse and cart in any way. On soft ground the horse has enormous advantages over any motor, and can progress by continually lifting its feet and placing them on fresh ground forward, and so delivers cartloads of sand, gravel, bricks, etc., in convenient places all round the buildings ;any small economy which the motor may show whilst hauling on the
hard road is entirely lost by the fact that the smooth wheel motor wagon cannot be taken over soft land surrounding buildings in course of erection. The builder has to unload at
the roadside, and at great expense have the materials slowly moved by wheelbarrow to the spots where the horse actually delivers them. I have just watched four houses being erected. The bricks, etc., for the first two were drawn by a spring-mounted compound road locomotive, and although the engine passed along all right, the very first truck of bricks sank down on to its axles on one side when entering the site, consequently the bricks, etc., had to be wheelharrowed in to where required. The builder (wiser by ex perience) has had the materials for the second two houses drawn by horses and carts, which have all come in off the road and traversed the softer land successfully, depositing bricks, sand, lime, cement, and timber in convenient places at a great saving. The same troubles are present with the use of motors for farm purposes; the motor only works successfully where it has a fairly dry bottom to hold on, still leaving the heaviest and most difficult haulage over soft lands to be done by horses. The majority of operations, such as using the horse hoe, harrows, drills, broadcast, horse rake, tedder, etc., have to be performed by horses_ As to threshing, very few farmers purchase threshing tackle now, but prefer to hire for this purpose I see constantly
passing my place a brightly-painted tilted van carrying e-reen tins and bearing on its tilt the words " Pratt's Motor
Spirit "; but evidently the distributors have little faith in petrol as a motive power, for a powerful horse is in its shafts. This is not a very good way of recommending the use of petrol-driven vans. The hideous noise made by many motorcars and wagons will have to be lessened very much. and better springing is absolutely necessary on the small steam tractors. It is certain that many prospective users will require enormous improvement before adopting motors.
—Yours faithfully, FRED PAGF.. "The Hundred," Romsey.
Can Noise be Reduced?
The Editor, "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."
Sir,—Seeing the letter from "Merchant " in your issue of June 1st, we desire to point out that we have made a special study of the problem of noise and vibration, with a view to eliminating both. We find the usual sheet iron casing round the front to be a great cause of noise, and have consequently discarded it in favour of a pitch-pine boarded front. Further, all our gears are machine-cut from solid steel, and run with very little noise. The water tank is sometimes a source of noise, and this we overcome by placing a layer of sound dead material between it and the frame. Excessive noise is also caused by badly-designed springs, which allow the wagon to bump on the road instead of riding easily over the uneven surface. Our springs are made by us from the highest quality of Sheffield blister spring steel, and are carefully proportioned to take up the vibration without transferring it to frame and gearing. We claim that our wagons run with less noise than an ordinary horse lorry, and shall be pleased to demonstrate that by a trial run at any time by arrangement with any intending buyer or other interested party. We shall be pleased to give "Merchant " any further details of our wagons, and feel confident that we can meet his or anybody's objections if given the opportunity.—Yours faithfully,
CARTER'S STEAM WAGON CO.
Oakenrod, Rochdale. Conveyance Wanted.
The Editor, "TIlE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."
Sir,---The growers of this neighbourhood are anxious to entertain a proposal from some firm for conveying their produce to Covent Garden by motor van. Could you recommend any firm or firms whom you think would be likely to entertain this? If so, I should be much obliged. If the trial answered, there would be a big opening, as all along the coast here choice fruit is very largely grown.—Yours faithfully, II. R. MARSHALL, Chairman of the Barnham and District
Fruit Growers' Association. Barnharn Junction, Bognor.
The Eastbourne Bus Service.
The Editor, "THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."
Sir,—In your issue of the rith May last you give a most flattering account of the Eastbourne motor bus service, which you cite as "A Model Bus Service," whereas in yesterday's " Daily Mail " I read that there has been a loss of Li ,000 for the past year, which is attributed mainly to the single-decked vehicles. However so, this loss must have been known at the time of your representative's visit.—
Yours faithfully,
HARRY J. K. SEALS'.
Dane House, Chilliam, near Canterbury, June 7th, 1905.
[Our representative was not given figures which the Corporation of Eastbourne has rightly made public only in its annual accounts. The word " model " was applied to the organisation of the service by the manager, Mr. NV. Turner Smith. Eastbourne's finding re single-deck buses is riot to be taken as a general condemnation of this type.— ED.]
Buses Tor Portugal, The Editor, " THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR."
Sir,—Would you kindly advise me as to most likely firms to supply motor omnibuses to carry 18 people Ivith luggage, about two tons in all, a distance of 35 miles, and return same day, hilly. country (Portugal)? fiy doing this you will
greatly oblige.—Yours faithfully, AeTnex TEALE. Thrale Hall, Streatham, S.W.
The Editor Invites correspondence on all subjects connected with the use of commercial motors. Letters must be on one side qf the pa Per only, and type-written by preference_ The right nf abbreviation is reserved, and no responsibility for the views expressed is accepted.
The executive council of the County Council's AFsociation expresses in the report for 1904 its approval of the recent Heavy Motor Car Order, in connection with the drafting of which its Motor Car Act Sub-Committee was consulted.