• HINTS FOR HAULIERS.
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An Occasional Chat on Subjects and Problems of Interest to those Who are Engaged or About to be Engaged, in Running Commercial: Vehicles, for a Living.
WHEN DO a nian's services, his work, cease to have any market value? How long does it take a lorry -driver, who has most likely been, for the greater part of hie working life, a trade unionist, wedded to the principle of at least
a fair day's. pay for a fair day's-work, to throw over
all his principles, and instead insist that he himself, of all people, shall not be. credited with any wage
for work which is actually much more real and strenuous than he has ever executed on behalf of any employer?
These questions are induced by a letter from a cheery fellow who has taken up his residenee in the country, and, because he has now bought his own lorry, and is going to drive it himself, proposes not only to work for nothing, but to let the lorry have
tree accommodation on his premises,, too,. He puts down a; string of numbered sentences, all, apparently, questions.
The unsophisticated reader of his letter would, no doubt, have tackled these quorie.s one by one, only to have a terribly rude shock when he arrived at the last, which states: "I shall be driving myself, no wages for man, and garage will be on my own pro
perty." A funny sort of question that, eh?' It abso
lutely throws out any work which might have been 'done in replying to any of the real questions which
precede it. As to the actual queetions, I purpose, to spend quite a long tiine on one of them, as it is very important, and deals with a much misunderstood point.
"How shall I charge, per ton-mile, for loads of wheat, oats, barley, flour, clover, etc.? The dis
tance, I believes is eight miles, and the lorry carries
three tons:" Now, I do not propose to answer this question at all, at least not in the way it should be answered. Not one haulier in a hundred' really
understands the meaning of the term ton-mile and not one in a thousand could ever make use of it if
he did understand it. Put in its simplest form, a ton-mile is this: It is one ton carried one mile. Rarely, however, does it appear in its simplest form, 'for it is . equally true that a ton-mileeis half a ton carried twoopiles, or two tons carried half a mile. The actual ton mileage is the product of the tons' carried, multiplied by the miles run, so that one ton
earned one mile is 1 ton x 1 mile = 1 ton-mile;
equally,. half a ton carried two miles is iton x 2 miles = .1 ton-mile, and so on. One cwt. carried 20
miles is as equally entitled to the description one ton.
mile as one ton, carried one mile, and if the load was only one pound, then for one tonemile to be
accomplished the load would have to be carried 2,240
miles. A consideration of the last-named example will show, in one way, how absurd it would be for
a haulier to quote a ton-mile, rate, for (let us sup
pose) if he has given some. such quotation, and the customer has insisted on its logical interpretation, then he might have to travel, with a four or five ton lorry, -2,240 miles, carrying one pound, in order to All a contract to carry at the rate of, say, a shilling a ton-milel 13ut that is only one of the peculiar aspects of the ton-mile method of reckoning. Really, in order I:6 keep strict account of work on. that basis, it will be necessary for every haulier to carry about with him' ,a. tame accountant and book-keeper, in order that his reckoning may be kept straight.. Consider the fol lowing case.
A four ton lorry startsout one fine morning from home, complete with driver, who might even be our
wageless friend, looking for work, and determined lo do it. when found, in the best possible style and at C22 a fair figure " per ton-mile." His first call is at farm A, three-quarters of a mile from. home. There he takes on a load of 25 cwt. of hay, which he is asked to deliver to farm D, which is two-and-one-eighth miles away from A. Proceeding, he makes a second call at farm B, three-quarters of ao:aile on the road from A to D, and there he picks up. another load, this time i tons of swedes, which be is asked to deliver to 0, a farm a mile away. On arrival at C, he discharges the swedes, and is fortunate in picking up a further 2 tons of oats for delivery to the local station, which happens to be 10 miles away. Furthermore, he is asked to call, on the way back from the station, at farm E, which is six miles from C, or four miles this side of the station, and collect a load of 2itons of straw which, the farmer at C has on order from the owner of farm E. Passing on to D, our haulier delivers his first load; of 25 cwt. of hay, obtained from farm A. At D he takes on a load of 11 tons of wheat for delivery to the station, and is, moreover, asked to bring back, from the station, a ton of coal.
Now, I am not going into the question of accommodation, or to endeavour to show how a man with a
single four ton lorry is going to accommodate, in the courseof one and the same journey, such widely differing load's as wheat, coal, and swedes. It is enough to state, at present, that the feat is not an impossible one; moreover, it it the sort of thing the haulier who sets out to ceder for the varying requirements be the way of cartage which present themselves from time to time at the hands of small -farmers will have to put up with. If my particular correspondent is under any illusions on this score,eit is far better that he should be disillusioned now than at some later date. I am going to assume, at least, that the hypothetical gentleman who is the subject of our present thoughts has the fertility of invention and resource to be able to provide the needful accommodation, and I will now turn to consider what sort, Of a ton-mile load he is carrying. I shall be better able to e.plain by ',Means of a diagram, Indeed, I doubt if I should care to set out on this Particular problem without a diagram of some sort, even if I were doing it for myself, let alone trying to explain it to someone else who may not quite see eye to eye with me. Fig. 1 shows the road. It is not at all -the up-and-down,in-and-out, round-and-round sort of affair that one usually associates with a country road, but, at any rate, it will serve our purpose. The. particular object of this diagram is to show graphically the mileage from point to point in a way which leaves no room for doubt, as might be the case if I left the reader with only the written word to consult. H represents home, the starting and finishing point of the wagon's daily labours. A is the first farm at which a call is
made, being three-quarters of a mile away from home. The other points, namely farms B, 0, D, E, and the station, are strictly in accordance with the text, which the reader may check if he cares to read that over 'carefully in conjunction with the diagram. Fig. 2 shows graphically the wagon's load as it rims from point to point ; it ,requires a little more explanation. Starting from home the wagon is empty till it reaches A, • three-quakers of mile away. This aortion of the journey is indicated on the diagram by a plain horizontal line. On reaching A, it accepts a load of 25 cwt., which has to -be carried to 1), 21miles away. This load, and the distance are indicated on the diagram by the little rectangle, shaded, for distinction, with horizontal lines. At B, however, as we have learnt, be picks va further 11 tons, which has to be conveyed to, 0, a mile further an. This is shown on the diagram: by means of the small rectangle shaded in vertical lines. Now, it should be appreciated that each cif these rectangles represents to scale, by its height, the load carried on behalf of the one elient, (the total height at any point shows the total load), and by its length, the mileage covered, so that the area of the rectangle represents to scale the ton-mileage in connection with that particular load.
For example, the lower, rectangle, which starts at A and finishes at D, has a height representing 25 cwt. and a, length representing 2* miles. Its area, 25 cwt. X 2* miles, equals 5S cwt. miles, or 2.65 tonmiles. Each small rectangle has similar properties.. At C., according to cur story, the lorry receives a new load, ,amounting to 2 tons, after it has dis oharged the tons of swedes. This is shown on the diagram by the rectangle with the -diagonal lines which slope upwards. from left to right. At D the first load, of 25 cwt., is discharged, so that the top lino of the diagram drops .accordingly, and this spoils the shape of the last rectangle formed, without, of course, detracting from its utility from our point of view. The last load accepted, C, is for -delivery to the station, and is shown by the diagram. At D, however, he takes on a further ij tons of wheat, also for delivery to the station, and this is shown by the rectangle shaded by diagonal lines sloping upwards from right to left. This completes the tally for the .outward run. Next week I will give a dia gram for the return journey.THE RHOTOR.