OPINIONS
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and QUERIES
NO SHORTAGE OF PETROL FOR RAILWAY ROAD TRANSPORT
VOU are to be congratulated on your leader headed 1 " Wanton Sacrifice of Our Industry," which appeared in your issue dated February 17. I have no doubt that you could have said more, but that, under present conditions, discretion has to be exercised.
So far as the writer is concerned, three things have been plainly seen for some time :—(1) that there is no shortage of petrol so far as the railways are concerned, even if they do apply through a " group " for it—in fact, the railwaymen and staff say that this is the case ; (2) that the method of rationing petrol was conceived, and is used, more particularly as a means to an end— the end not being necessarily the saving of petrol ; (3) vehicle manufacturers, as such, will do very little, if anything, to help the haulier.
I hope that The Commercial Motor will be able to keep going throughout these difficult times.
Bletchley. W. H. joxEs.
PART-LADEN RUNNING AND FUEL RATIONING
VOU may remember that I have followed the 1 alternative-fuel problem for a long time, and I would like to comment on Captain Walton's article in your issue of March 2.
Regarding the operation of oilers, Mr. F. Perkins's statement that waste gas oil is satisfactory when mixed with 50 per cent. of genuine oil fuel should give more than the " slight relief " Captain Walton mentions on the oil-engine side. For petrol engines, what has happened to " Carbohydrol " which, if I remember rightly, you described some months ago?
Also I cannot let this statement go by when he says that part-laden vehicles should be prohibited. With regard 'to the transport of bricks, old iron and similar goods, I agree, and in our district no petrol is issued for brick cartage unless a back load is already booked. That is a step in the right direction, but is causing a lot of bad feeling, because empty wagons from other districts still come for bricks.
But to attempt to prohibit empty running by lorries carrying foodstuffs would result in enormous wastage ; no one will ever know how many tons of potatoes have gone bad this winter through lying on rail a week or more.
In conclusion, may I add a few words about our sorest subject—rationing? I keep having a dig at our A.R.O. Area Office, and have suggested that the Association should get in touch with other organizations, if only because " unity is strength." Whether or not they have thought about it I do not know, but there are others who have suffered besides hauliers. The farmers have had their share, many around here have been put to serious trouble and loss, and now I hear that there are rumblings in the motor trade.
According to a trade journal, there is a Motor Trade War Executive, which is beginning to protest. Why not get together? If the daily Press will not let the cat out, bills in every garage up and down the country would do so. Paste them on every wagon, stop at nothing.
When the first threat of serious fuel restriction came I had stickers printed, and they were pasted on all the lorries that go to London markets from this district. The wording on these was: "Road Transport Feeds You and Demands Fair Rations."
Sandy, Beds. J. H. ATKINS, For Atkins Bros.
WHO SHOULD EXPERIMENT WITH PRODUCER FUELS?
ONCE again we are writing to you on the subject of producer-gas plants, in reply to articles which appeared in your issue of March 2, and we trust that you will publish them in order to deal with the points raised in the articles to which we refer.
Captain J. B. Walton appears to insist upon transporting producer-gas into the realm of fantastic figures, and there is only one reply that can be put to the contents contained in his article, and that is to the effect that the concern of which he is a constituent part, should surely find no difficulty in spending either four or forty million pounds to provide petrol from coal if it thought this practicable.
In the same way, since Captain Walton has a "soya bean" in his bonnet, and since we are fully aware of the tremendous strides that Lever Brothers have made in the development of the soya bean and its derivatives, there is no reason why this company should not have before now planted the immense acreage which Captain Walton invites us to plant with soya beans, and not only save the country from disaster but also reap a huge profit in doing so.
The gas producers that Captain Walton so continually derides are gradually finding their way out of the slough that exists in his mind, and we are quite sure that, eventually, he will be glad of an opportunity to operate some of these vehicles for his own fleet, should the liquid-fuel position become too stringent.
Mr. W. IL Goddard appears, from his letter, to be totally unaware of the fuel situation that has cropped up, and if we may say so the price he quotes for anthracite is very much out of date.
If you will refer to two previous letters sent to you on the question of fuel prices, especially the second one, you will note that the retail price of Progasite to-day is 26 per ton. The only reason that the fuel people put forward for this disgusting increase from the prewar price of £2 7s. 6d. per ton is that they are now making a special fuel to a specification provided for them by the gas-producer manufacturers who, ourselves included, in agreeing to this specification, tied this rope round our necks. So far as we are aware, the Great Mountain Peas that we were able to buy before the war are exactly the same as Progasite which we have to buy now.
It should also be remembered that, in referring to gas-producer fuels, there are several types of fuel, including alkali-activated coke, low-temperature coke, charcoal and anthracite, all of which are suitable for gas producers, and the prices quoted by Messrs. Senior and Monck are, no doubt, for a fuel other than Progasite.
It should also be pointed out to potential gasproducer users who own large estates of timber, that this timber could easily be converted into charcoal in a kiln. The labour involved in this would not exceed £3 per ton, and this charcoal would provide a homeproduced fuel for any gas-producer vehicles which were running about on their estates.
The possibility of further alternative fuels will not arise until the coal people have the good sense to try out on several types of gas-producer all the qualities of coal that they win from their mines, in order to find out the different results obtainable.
This information should be very favourable to gasproducer manufacturers, both from the question of the design of some future model and for passing on to users. At present the coal companies are inviting the gasproducer concerns to purchase their fuel and make their own experiments. As this information would benefit the coal companies more than the gas-producer manufacturers, the experiments should be carried out by the coal companies, which are already in possession of funds for this purpose.
The writer has sent all the particulars appertaining to the rise in fuel prices to the Department of Mines, and has complained about this rise in price. At the time of writing nothing as yet has been done in the
matter. JOHN HOLDER,
Director, for Dupuy Gas Producers, Ltd. London, W.11.
MORE REGRETS FOR THE STEAM WAGON
I WAS very interested to see in your issue of February 24 a letter from Mr. L. Pritchard, in the last paragraph of which he shows up the great unfairness of the law in respect of steam wagons,
He asks why not a lighter model, and I think the answer to that lies in the fact that the commercial vehicle, perfect in all respects, never has and never will be arrived at, no matter what the motive power. To a great extent, where considerable power is required, especially for getting in and out of bad and rough places, weight is constructionally inevitable.
The steam wagon enjoys amongst its qualifications reliability and a great reserve of power, these being arrived at largely by sound and thorough construction, which involves weight. I have heard many people say that a lot of the smaller petrol and oil vehicles now on the road are legally permitted to carry heavier loads than their design or construction safely permits.
A very strong prejudice seems to exist against steam vehicles, in spite of their using home-produced coal— surely a very important fact in war time? Mr. Paden was right when he said in an article you published some time ago, that each form of transport should he allowed to develop on its own merits. Had this been done, British transport would to-day be the envy and admiration of the world, and the steam wagon would be playing its part in the national emergency.
Cheltenham. P. J. HOSCASON.
KEEP THE SMALLER CONCERNS BUSY ON WAR WORK
THEsmaller manufacturing concerns should be grateful to you for championing their cause with the Ministry of Supply. Whereas in the last war coachbuilders' shops such as our own were all kept busy producing bodies for W.D. lorries, the position in this war has been completely reversed by the Government policy of buying complete vehicles from the chassis manufacturers.
This policy might be justified if chassis and body were made as a unit, but in spite of much technical talk, this development seems as far off as ever.
No doubt it would be argued that buying the job complete saves cost and speeds production, but the truth of this is very doubtful. Bodywork requires different trades from those engaged on chassis building only, and the necessary tradesmen can have been obtained by chassis manufacturers only from the coachbuilding industry, which means an unnecessary concentration of workers in already congested chassis-producing districts. Moreover factory space is occupied which could be used for chassis production, whilst the coachbuilder's factory space remains empty and redundant.
Meanwhile the lack of orders has caused many coachbuilders to close down, whilst those who have kept going have lost many of their best workmen. Surely the war effort of the Departments concerned has by now got far enough into its stride to have no need to continue the " short-cut " method of dealing only with the biggest concerns?
This policy is particularly unfortunate in the commercial motor industry, where, generally speaking, the division between big and small units is also the division between chassis and body manufacturers.
London, N.W.5. RAYMOND BIRCH, for Birch Bros., Ltd.
(Coachbuilding Department).
EXTREME PRESSURE ON RAILWAY EMPLOYEES
EMPLOYEES of at least one of the railway companies are, in some cases, working overtime of anything from 12 hours upwards a day.
As an example, it has come to our knowledge that at one important railway station a driver on the roadtransport side collapsed after 33 hours of continuous work. Another driver we know was working 16-hour days last week. Where are the " 5i-hour " policemen in such cases? T. ALTON, for Alton Bros. (Trimdon), Ltd, Trimdon Grange.
[Apparently this matter of long hours at present worked by railway employees does not apply only to their roadtransport drivers. We were talking a few days ago with a track worker, who, owing to his exhausting labours, was permitted the privilege of sitting in a corridor car in order to enjoy his luncheon from a bag he carried. This man had worked for a day and a night and still had a considerable distance to travel home. If such instances be frequent, it is difficult to understand the view of the Government that the railways can possibly cope with the work which is at present being performed so well by road transport, and this without such excessive overtime.—En.]