Progress of the Municipal Motor Vehicle and Appliance.
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TllE honour of being the first public body to adopt motor vehicles for the purposes of refuse collection, street watering and cleaning, etc., appears to belong to the Borough Council of Chelsea, which, under the advice of Mr. T. W. E. Higgins, its surveyor at that time, made its initial purchase of a steam wagon so long ago as 1898, the idea of providing the vehicle with interchangeable refuse and water-tank bodies being acted upon later. Other municipal authorities soon became interested in mechanical transport, the authorities at Westminster, which had started With steam vehicles, being the first to adopt petrol-driven machines.
Wandsworth, whilst convinced of their utility, inasmuch as one steam street-watering wagon was replacing three of the old horSe-drawn type, was somewhat doubtful as to the reliability of petrol machines. and the cost of repairs to them and, consequently, in ordering five Leylands in June, _1905, the authorities stipulated that the Makers should 'keep the vehicles in repair for the first six Mouths free of cost and for the following seven years for 150 per Year.
In ;rune, 1906, Mr. j. A. Brodie, the City Engineer of Liverpool, read an important paper on "Motor Vehicles for Municipal „Work" before a meeting of the Incorporated Association of Municipal and County Engineers, the figures of economy which he was able to pre
sent conviucing even the most sceptical, with the result that a big impetus was given to the municipal motor movement.
As the years rolled by, many new varieties of public utility appliance, such as gully emptiers and road sweepers, came into use, it being 'demonstrated more than -a decade ago that the latter had been able to effect a saving of 3s. 2.9d. per mile swept over horse-drawn sweepers.
Towards the end of 1913 petrol vehicles, which had now largely superseded steamers, in certain spheres of activity, had, in their turn, to face a rival, for the use of municipal electric vehicles had been given a big fillip by a report of comparative tests carried out by the Heston and Isleworth Urban District Council,with the three forms of prime mover, in which electric traction was shown to effect the biggest saving over horses. The experience of the Heston and Isleworth authorities turned the thoughts of many municipal engineers in the new direction, and other, Public bodies began to adopt electries, amongst the earliest being Sheffield, Blackpool, Derby, Glasgow, Mansfield
and. Croydon.
As we stated in one of. our issues in November, 1921, "the small mileage and the large number of stops involved in the collection of house refuse have made the electric vehicle the rival of the horse." Needless to say, not all municipal engineers are electrically in dined, there being some who still consider that petrol vehicles are the most satisfactory, having regard to local conditions.
Mr. E. J. Elford, M.Iust.C.E., then City Engineer of Cardiff and now the Wandsworth Borough Surveyor, contributed an article to our columns on "Municipal Engineers and Their Problems," in June, 1919, and it is inter-e.sting to record that he is to-day using in Wandsworth the Pagefield combination system of horse-drawn wagon and motor lorry first demonstrated in April, 1922. In this system it will be -reraembored a low-loading wagon is drawn from house to house by a horse .and, -when full, is hauled on to the platform of the lorry which, having brought an empty wagon to enable the dust collect-ors to cOnithiue their Work,.rapidlY-ConveYs the loaded one to the dustyard. At Southport, where a demonstration was given, it was shown that the Pagefield System of dust-collection reduced -the cost per house per year from 108. 5.7d. to-6s. 2.8d., a saving of 3s. 2.9d. Within the past year or two the-small-wheeled, low-loading motor vehicle has also been largely adopted for dust-collecting Mirposes.
During the past 21 years the motor vehicle and appliance in their many and -varied forms have won 'their way -by sheer merit intd all sphereS -ofmunieipal activity in Which mechanical vehiek,-; can he employed.