Answers to Queries.
Page 17
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Petrol or Battery ?
[2499] (Westcliff).--You will probably have some difficulty in getting early delivery of a petrol-driven vehicle, but electrically-driven vehicles are slow on the road, and particularly slow uphill, quite apart from their higher first cost. They are, of course, successful mechanically, and, if your local circumstances favour the encouragement of the consumption of electrical energy, that might prove to be a determining factor.
Charges for Particular Jobs.
[2500] To Oblige).—In order to have a satisfactory margin of profit, to which you are reasonably entitled as contractors, the 182-mile trip to Nottingham and back, for a four-ton machine, should bring you in not less than 212; similarly, the 222-mile trip to Walney Isle and back, for a two-ton machine, should bring you in not less than 29. To pay, as a contractor, with a three-ton lorry, on a total mileage of 15,000 miles per annum, you should base your rates on is. 3d. per mile run, or you cannot rely on a profit that is worth having in relation to the risks of the business.
Inventing a Water-tube Boiler.
[2501] (Glasgow).—Whilst exception cannot be taken to our broad statement—Answer No. 2483—that watertube boilers are out of favour with motor-wagon manufacturers, we willingly except from that general statement the excellent type of water-tube boiler which has been adopted, and which is so widely used, by Alley and MacLellan, Ltd., of Polinadie. We happen to have been personally acquainted with the evolution and perfection of that boiler, from its earliest stages, and we can go further, in our commendation of it as a suitable example for motor-wagon use, when we say that it is a quick and economical steamer, easily cleaned, free from the trouble of leaking tubes, and readily accessible in all parts. We, as a matter of fact, have before us a quotation from the report of a boiler inspector concerning one of these Sentinel water-tube boilers, in which it is specifically put on record that there are "no parts inaccessible."
The Possibility of Manufacture of Four-wheel-drive Chassis in this Country at the Present Time.
.[2502] (Edinburgh).—We note what you have to say with regard to four-wheel-drive chassis. Are you aware that the French Government has conducted very considerable experiments, with satisfaction, with machines of this class, and that they are being used on a large scale during the present operations ? So far, in this country, no maker is ready to sell a commercial model of this type. In America, the U.S. Government has also adopted the four-wheel drive on a. large scale, and several commercial models with similar mechanism are in use, notably the Jeffery. We are fully alive to the advantages which, under certain conditions, this class of drive offers. We are not at the moment able to tell you of anybody in this country who is in a position seriously to consider the manufacture, of such a model from somebody else's designs. The industry as a whole is so exceptionally busy with Government work that we are confident in advising you that nothing of the sort would be entertained at the present time by any established manufacturer of commercial vehicles. If, however, you care to send to us your designs, we will examine them and give you our opinion as to their practicability. If they are exceptionally promising, we might make inquiries as to the possibilities of manufacture at an early date as soon as Government pressure eases somewhat. We have in the past urged the good points, including distributed demands on the road surface and improved braking effects. The Chances of the Trolleybus Discussed. Reasons. Why this Hybrid Type is Making Little Progress.
[2503] (Fenland).—We have watched this development very carefully from its inception some years ago,, and have taken pains to keep in touch with it. We soon, however, came to adopt the opinion, and not without careful consideration, that the trolleybus involved a hybrid method of propulsion which offered practically none of the advantages of the self-propelled vehicle, and few of those of the rail-bound tramcar. The only justification for employment which we were able to discover was that it formed a convenient outlet for the consumption of superfluous power from central power stations. The units are heavy, inflexible compared with independent vehicles, and of course tie their users to the following of the track which has previously been prepared in respect of overhead equipment. The overhead equipment itself is even more complicated and disfiguring than that of the ordinary tramcar, and is, of course, very expensive. We have come to the conclusion that, providing the
running authorities have no special consideration in regard to the use of current which they possess available, and for which they desire to create a further market, there is absolutely nothing to recommend the trolleybus in preference to the separate motorbus, and moreover that there are many directions in which the latter is far preferable—notably the ability to establish services, to augment them, and to discontinue them at will, in any direction to suit the exigencies of traffic of the class which these extension services, whether motorbuses or trolleybuses, are invariably called upon to handle, especially in provincial towns where week-end football matches, race meetings, agricultural shows, excursions, etc., render it absolutely necessary that such changes can be made, readily and effectively.
Other points to consider are : Having regard to the
time the trolleybus has been offered by various development corporations and considering the amount of money that has been available for its development, there has been remarkably little actual establishment, excepting in very particular cases where the local tramway and allied interests have clearly been able to bring considerable pressure to bear on those who had' the choice to make. This in itself is a significant circumstance. We may be correct in attaching considerable importance to the fact that it is extremely difficult to get actual, certified, and full working-costs per vehicle-mile concerning those services such as are established at Leeds and Bradford.
The question of the relative damage to roads, as between tramcar and motorbus, of course, is also arguable as between tramcar and trolleybus. The local damage is indeed more accentuated in the case of the trolleybus because of the driver's enforced habit of running principally on one particular part of the road in order to keep his trolley more or less in the same relative position, although this is a point to which not too much attention need be given.
We have not written on this subject for over a year, or even more, and we fear it would not be much use our referring you to articles at a date longer ago than that. The motorbus itself has won such a remarkable measure of success under all sorts of conditions, town and provincial, that our final conclusion has been that the trolleybus need not be very seriously considered as a competitor. That electric power will ultimately bear a very considerable share of commercial-vehicle activity is not to be denied. It is not as yet clear in what form it will be economically applied on any great scale. Neither the trolleybus nor the battery vehicle, of course, represents finality.