Society of Motor Omnibus Engineers.
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Discussion on Mr. Douglas Mackenzie' s Paper—(Conthrdeci).
Mr. II. G. Butternut (Milnes-Daimler, Limitedi congratulated the Society on the programme they had arranged for the en.sie mg winter. He wished to thank Lord Montagu for the sym. patily he had expressed towards them, and for his promise oi assistance. With regard to the controlling of motor omnibuses, the question was of vital importance to everybody, and the sooner they got a body of practical men together who understood traffic conditions in London the better it would be fur the operating companies and for everybody concerned. Mr. Mackenzie had referred to the question of the earning power of omnibuses, and there was no doubt that the writer of the paper had gone well into the matter, and the comparison he had made between London and country traffic seemed quite reasonable. Upon the question of punctuality he could not agree with whet had been said, because the whole history of omnibus traffic proved that
PUNC7ITAT.,ITY WAS 1' HE SOUL OF THE BUSINESS,
and it always would be. It was good to be able to rely upon an omnibus starting at a certain time, and scheduled times would have to be worked in order to make motor omnibuses a success. This would enable them not only to keep faith with the public, but it had a good deal to do with discipline and the control of the men under their charge. If a driver had ri0 definite time, he got to his destination just when he could, and had no responsibility, and it was well known that the success of the great omnibus companies was due to the fact that the men had been disciplined, and had certain duties to perform, and they knew that unless they were performed to -time they would be fined. With regard to the camber of the roads, it had been stated that our firm, the Milnes-Daimler Company, had discontinued the splaying of the wheels. This was hardly the fact, because they had now discovered that it was almost impossible in London to run their omnibuses with success without the splay. It was true that this firm made a few of the upright wheels, but, since then they had had to revert to their original design, which was found to be better for London. All the vehicles for London, which they were now making, were according to the design with the splay for the wheels. He had made experiments with the Hele-Shaw clutch, and it was an absolute success; he had driven one about 4,000 miles without any form of adjustment whatever. He thought they would find this clutch invaluable, considering the condition in which omnibuses were used in the public streets. He should certainly think very seriously before altering a complete design, which had given universal satisfaction, simply because there had been two or three careless handlings of machines that had caused a breakdown. At that time when they had some 400 or te:10 machines running success• fully, he should certainly hesitate before recommending such a radical change in their construction as that which Mr. Mackenzie had suggested. They were now making a reliable machine, that would conform to the police regulations, and, iii his opinion, itn engine of from
ttO TO 30 IIORSE-POWER WAS QUITE ADKQuATE
for the requirements of London traffic. The use of 40h.i). engines must, of necessity, be very expensive, especially in regard to fuel. Four miles per gallon was rather below the average in London, lie agreed with Dr. IIele-Shaw that the blook tire was practically impossible to use. He had just heard that a certain English manufacturer of tires was making a tire with a number of holes right through it. This introduced a suction effect, and, in conjunction with the twin tire, would alteY the whole question of side-slipping. He thought with the increased wheel base they were now adopting, and the increased width, side-slips would be reduced very materially in the future. If one studied the papers, which now were giving very much prominence to the question of side-slips, they would find, in the majority of cases, that the vehicles with a very short wheel base, and which were very narrow, were causing more trouble than .those with the wide wheel base and the wide whell track. At the present time, the omnibus manufacturer was going through a very serious time, but they must endure it with patience. He believed, in the end, that the stringency of the
police regulations would ultimately be a good thing to the whole motor industry. In many cases he thought the "stop" notices had been beneficial. At the present time, motor omnibuses were running much more quietly, and they were being kept in a better state, and this was giving much benefit to the industry. As for larger vehicles, if they were going to widen all the streets of London he would have no objection to bigger omnibuses, but he thought the present size of omnibuses was quite large enough for London streets.
[Lord Montagu left at this stage of the proceedings, and the Chair was taken by Mr. F. C. A. Coventry.]
Mr. r . FROST SNIITH (Thomas Tilling, Limited) said that his firm had tried the heavier motor omnibuses with engines of 35h.p., and they had not been a success, for they were only able to get 2.1 miles to the gallon out of them. The mediumsized engine, of about 28h.p., gave all the results they wanted, and worked out at about five miles to the gallon. In his opinion, "stop" notices' had done a lot of good, because, at one time, it was thought that they kept omnibuses simply to take 'limey; they had since learned that that policy was a mistaken one, and that they were kept to earn money. V% ith regard to the skidding difficulty, his opinion was that the
DRIVER WAS THE VERY BEST "NON-SKID" they could hope for. (Hear, bear.) There was a good deal of carelessness in this matter, and, on some of the roads with bad cambers, the drivers never even dreamt of the possibilily of skidding: often they did not put on the check lock quickly enough, and then, of course, they could not prevent the skid. He thought that a really good mechanical device, or chain device, for preventing skidding would be a long time coming, and, therefore, it was necessary that their drivers should be trained more skilfully As for the system of training drivers which Mr. Mackenzie had recommended, in his firm the drivers were taught to leave the vehicles alone. He agreea that road engineers were a dead loss, for they were generally loafing about, and were scarcely ever to be found where they were wanted. His firm now kept the engineers at the dep6t, and they were sent off to do such repairs as the leading drivers could not put right. Mr. F. J. FIELD (London and District Motor Bus Company, Limited) said he had tried the leading driver system, and it had failed hopelessly. A car running under the ordinary service, in charge of an ordinary driver, might be stopped for some reason, and the leading driver would come along. In such a case, he had known an actual fight take place as to which of them should drive. That kind of thing occurred continually. Mr Mackenzie had referred to various forms of non-skidding devices. He might say that, since the beginning of this year, he had been in CORRESPONDENCE WITH NEARLY 300 GENTLEMEN interested in such devices, but, unfortunately, none of them had the slightest possible chance of efficiently serving the purpose for which they were designed. The only one which he had found of any use at all was a tripod arrangement, but this would not operate on asphalt, although it was very effective on wooden roads or macadam surfaces where there was anything in the nature of a small hole or depression. With this contrivance, an omnibus had been pulled up so sharply that the driver imagined there had been a collision. In regard to this question of side-slipping, they had been trying a sectional tire, with the sections laid on the wheel obliquely, and, up to a certain mileage, when the profile of the tire maintained its original form, this contrivance seemed to check the tendency to skid, but, as the tire wore down, its usefulness became less apparent in this direction. The vote of thanks having been put from the Chair, and carried by acclamation,
Mr. DOUGLAS MACKENZIE, in reply, thanked his auditors very cordially for the way in which they had received his paper. Not being an operating engineer or a manufacturer, he thought he would have touched upon a good many sore points, and fallen foul of a good many of them. Even Mr. Burford had let him down very gently. Some very important points had been raised in the discussion, and he should like to deal with them. He joined issue with what Mr. Shrapnell Smith had said about twin tires. The twin tire presented a comparatively small surface to the road; when it was worn down very flat, a block tire, or a tire made of various pieces so as to give a certain amount of space between the different parts, was only effective in comparatively mild cases of side-slip, and, when this class of tire was so worn, and the car was running on genuine London grease, he thought none of them were any good. Mr. Bell (who had been called away during the evening owing to indisposition in his family) had been instrumental in organising one of the largest motor omnibus services in the Metropolis, and he had brought it to a very high state of perfection. The last "Vanguard" report revealed the fact that under 70 per tent. of their omnibuses were on the road for the first fifteen months, but, at the present time, the average was considerably over 90 per cent., and that had been accemplished by a careful system of overhauling every detail of the car, the chassis, and the body, every part ot which received attention nightly. Mr. Coventry had emphasised the differences between chassis for London work and for country work, and attention had been drawn to the inefficiency ot water-cooled brakes as at present constructed. He did not wonder that all these difficulties were met with in their initial stages, but they had got to get over them. If a water-cooled brake was rendered inoperative because it gs.it choked up with mud, surely, there was sonic method of getting over that difficulty ! He would suggest that Mr. Coventry should bring his fertile brain to work upon this question, and, if he did, he felt sure that he would succeed in producing a satisfactory water-cooled brake. It had been said that country services were very severe on body varnish. Witk regard to Torquay, Mr. Coventry was connected with a deal service of omnibuses to the one he had mentioned, and they were running vehicles of an entirely different type. He thought the efficiency of the Parsons' chain was very much due to the more even motion which they got from a steam-driven vehicle than from a petrol-driven vehicle. He hoped Mr. Coventry would not be discouraged, and taat, perhaps next year, he would be able to tell them he had discovered something which would solve the non-skid problem. With regard to better seats, he might say that he had ridden from Sheffield to Govan on a car fitted with Lee's patent seats, and he had never experienced anything more comfortable on a car, and, what was more, they were very cheap and simple. Mr. Lee's idea was that the hard seat was not suitable for long journeys. He first thought of a camp stool, but that had a tendency to close in and nip the passenger. Mr. Lee worked his angles out, and devised a hammock seat, which was very comfortable. . This was the seat which he had been advised it was quite hopeless to bring before the London police. With regard to what had been said about punctuality, they all agreed, but they did not want to know that a particular bus would pass a particular point at a particular moment : they did want to know that omnibuses should run at fairly frequent intervals, and they did not want to wait ten minutes for a bus, and then have ten of them come along in a bunch! He thought
A LITTLE MORE CO-OPERATION
between the engineers and the traffic department would get over some of their difficulties, and, as operating engineers, he should like them to join hands with the traffie department instead of fighting them, and have a little more regard to the travelling public from that point of view. If he understoo( what Mr. Burford had said correctly, it was that the first vehicles placed upon the Loudon streets had a very considerable splaying of the wheels; then they tried a straight countershaft, and found that was wrong ; whilst now thee had come to a splay which was about half the origiaal angle. His opinion was that they ought to make the splay of the wheels suitable for the average of the roads over which the vehicles had to travel. As for the roads, he thought the wore the Press would agitate about excessive camber, the better it would be, not only for the travelling public, but for the people who had to stand at the roadside. Mr. Frost Smith had stated that his firm had obtained a result of five miles to the galloe with a 24 to 28h.p. engine, whilst with the large power ontni. buses the result had been about three miles to the gallon.. He should like to know whether that was due to the make ol the vehicle or to the power? Some makes were considerably more economical than others, and he should not be giving too much away by saving that Mr. Bell, who had a great number of vehicles under his care, got a result of five miles per gallon throughout A little more attention would have to be given to finding out the right power of engine which was suitable for the different routes. Ile was extremely likitirified to hear that Mr. Burford had run a Hele-Shaw clutch for three months without adjusting it (Mr. Burford: After the first adjustment), although Dr. Hele-Shaw had told them they
should look frequently to the condition of the clutch. lie
thought, if the clutch were adjusted more frequently, they would get better results, because, as long as the driver dit
not report trifling matters, nothing was done in the depot.
This remark applied equally to private cars, which were often neglected, with the result that they did not get such good work out of them. He thought the time would come, ant before long, when they would find some contrivance to mitigate side-slip, but he did not think it would be produced by an inventor. His opinion was that it would be evolved ly a motor-omnibus engineer, and he looked to the members of am Society to give a little of their spare time endeavouring to die cover a solution of the problem. In conclusion, he thanheit them for the courtesy with which they had listened to his remarks.