THE SHOW AT OLYMPIA.
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AS a spectacle, and as a display of all that is best in the commercial vehicle world, it cannot be denied that the Fifth Commercial Vehicle Show at Olympia is substantially ahead of any previous similar exhibition having road transport as its subject. There is no evidence in the Show of any depression in the trade, nor of any skin-flinting that would suggest that the industry has not the fullest confidenee in its own immediate future.
On every hand one can see that the utmost thought and consideration have been given to the problems of the man who requires to use road transport. .
Not only the vehicle owner who desires to make a profit from the employment of his vehicle, but the passenger who trusts his person, and the trader who trusts his goods to road vehicles, have been con sidered at every point. .
Taking passenger vehicles, for example, the developments are all towards the greater comfort of the occupants and their convenience. Improved accessibility to motor coaches and increased room for circulating in the body, the provision of ample exits and of luggage facilities, are all points which make for the comfort, convenience and safety of the user. The more profitable working .of the vehicle is aimed at in the provision of such overhead cover as will be interchangeable, .greater protection being provided in the winter by a, fixed top and side windows than is given in the summer by the Cape cart hood. • Everything that the.manufacturer can do to enable the user to keep his vehicle on the road for 12 months in the year means a big advantage to the latter in the matter of spreading his overhead charges over a long period instead of over a Short season.
A good deal of attention has been •paid also to the requirements of municipal authorities: . They have considerable use for the tipping vehicle, and tipping gears are being arranged to act reliably in adverse circumstances, such as when the vehicle. is standing on very uneven ground.
• A development noticeable on. the trailer is the equipment of it as a tipping vehicle—not merely hand tipped, but operated by power from the hauling vehicle.
Steam, undoubtedly, has gone ahead during the past year, for new types and new makes, are on the market, and are shown at this Exhibition for the first time. There are new electric vehicles, and, but for the Uncertainty brought about by recent deci siona on the part of one or two important mimicipanties, we believe that other manufacturers of steam and petrol vehicles would this year have entered the lists with machines that are battery driven.
An important development which we noticed during our peregrinations at Olympia is the employment of light chassis mounted on pneumatic tyres for van work and for small parties of passengers.
The display of these vehicles presages faster' road transport of parcels and passengers, thus, inter alia, serving, it will be noticed, to increase the number of classes of passengers catered for by the motor coach.
We have never held it to be agood thing to convert the ordinary touring car chassis for van work, but more than one exhibitor was showing examples of vehicles to which this objection might formerly be said truly toeapply. It occurred to us that, for certain work, the practice was free from criticism. Take, for instance, the commercial traveller. It is far better for him to have a vehicle of the type which was developed for touring-car work than one which was developed for van work. The pedals and the steering column and seating arrangements of the touring car have, of course, been planned out for the owner-driver, and when a traveller and his driver are seated in a vehicle which was originally designed as a touring car, they are undoubtedly seated in a much more comfortable manner than would be possible on a van chassis.
The work of the traveller, for one, is bound to benefit by the improved amenities of his mode of travel.
It was to be observed from the exhibits that coalgas as a fuel has entirely served its purpose and coMpleted its career, for there was no evidence of its employment in transport work throughout the whole Exhibition, but the gas producer made its appearance at this Exhibition for the first time, the various difficulties that. were introduced by the manufacture of the plant on true engineering lines having now been successfully overcome. • It is greatly to he hoped that the commercial vehicle industry will be able to consummate the business initiated at this Show. Certainly, it ig true to say that the motor vehicle industry is the only section of the light, engineering trades in this country which is enjoying any substantial measure of activity.
Power Starters for Commercial Vehicle Engines.
ONE of the chief causes of excessive petrol consumption on commercial vehicles, and particularly . on those engaged in work which necessitates a large number of steps, for picking up and delivering goods, is the length of time during 'which the engines are running without performing any useful work in the way of driving the vehicles.
In extreme cases, quite one-half of the total time during which the vehicles are engaged may be peeve pied by stops. With the steam wagon, such stops are not of much consequence in the way of fuel consumption, and the electric vehicle consumes no extra current except that utilized for moving the machine from rest, but in the case of the petrol-engined vehicle the waste is considerable and may reduce the mileage per gallon by one-third, or even one-half, unless the engine be stopped at each halt. Herein lies the rub, for if there are many halts the driver is apt to become tired of continually swinging the starting handle, and prefers to keep his engine running at the cost of considerable fuel ; this is particularly the case with vehicles in Which it is difficult to start the engines. , The obvious remedy is to render the starting of petrol engines so easy that the drivers will be encouraged to stop them at every opportunity. In this connection the use of one or other of the impulse starters in conjunction with the magneto may prove beneficial, for such a device renders swinging almost unnecessary. What is required is merely to pull the engine comparatively slowly over compression. ' Power starters have been greatly improved during the last year or two, and several types are available suitable for the lighter types of commercial vehicles, but the development otpower starting devices for the heavier vehicles has not made any great progresS, and herein lies a considerable field for careful investigation.
The Tramways and the Road.
THERE seems to be a disposition to regard the tramways as being unduly burdened by their obligation, under the. Tramways Actiiof 1870, to maintain and to repair the roads on which their tracks are laid.
Since that obligation was incurred, it is true that the advent of motor traffic in general, and of the heavy vehicle in particular, has introduced a road wearing factor that may not have been contemplated at the time. Nevertheleas, there are two sides to this, question, as to every other. We may grant that some degree of rbad wear and tear is occasioned by the heavy vehicle, and that the burden of repairing it falls upon tramway authorities, but we may point out, at the same time, that a very large amount of wear rand tear, difficult to estimate, no doubt, and almost impossible to trace directly to its source, is, without question, occasioned to every rubber tyred vehicle in the country which traverses roads on. which tram tracks are laid. Not only the heavy vehicle suffers in this respect, but every form of motor vehicle, and the ordinary bicycle as well.
When the tracks are in a. bad condition, as they have been so often during recent years, this damage to the tyres, and even to the vehicles themselves, due to the bumping and vibration to which they are subjected, and the side strains thrown on the wheels, axles and springs, is very greatly increased.
If the tramway's burden for road • maintenance is such a heavy one, it would certainly be Gilbert/an to Suggest that, if anyone is to help them out, the makers and vendors of rubber tyres might do sot Certainly no portion of this burden should 'be laid upon the already tax-burdened motor vehicle. The tramways accepted their oblieations under Act of Parliament, and Sir Henry Maybury's suggesDe
tion, made at Bristol the other day, that they ought to go to Paxliament for relief, should be noted., If this course is taken, those whose duty it is to uphold motor interests should not be unprepared_ It is satisfactory to note that, at the same time, the Director-General of the Roads Department stated that, if the tramways were relieved of the maintenance and repair of the road, they mast pay for the use of it instead. That payment would have to -be a very heavy one, 'so long as this cumbersome and antediluvian system of passenger transport is permitted to remain mid to mar the road transport system of the country. I
The Driver and the Coach.
PRELIMINARY perusal of the contributions submitted by drivers in connection with our coach competition shows a certain unanimity of dissatisfaction with some of the features of the modern coach.
Though the driver may not, perhaps, be accepted as a competent critic on all features of coach design arid construction, there is no doubt that his 'opinion on some matters is of vAlue and should receive con, side ration. We find that most drivers (as is perhaps only natural) have some criticism to make about the driver's seat—not on the score of comfort, but oa the grounds of efficient driving. Either they are of the. opinion that the proximity of the passengers tends to divert their attention from their work, or actually interferes with their manipulation of the vehicle, or else controls. are inconveniently placed, switches and so on .sometimes being mo-unted out of the driver's reach, and within the reach of the meddlesome front-seat passenger. There is, it seems, also a feeling that there should be some measure of adjustability to accommodate non-standardized drivers.
A general hankering after vacuum brakes, electro magnetic brakes, or some alternative to nermal brake construction seems to show that drivers, as a Class, find the ordinary hand and footbrake manipulation irksome or tiring work. One competitor, at 'least, protests against the necessity of removing a hand from the steering wheel at moments when good steering is often ed supreme importance_ Springing comes in for a good deal of criticism, and it must be remembered that some of this is criticism based on passengers' remarks. The, driver, in fact, is acting, in many cases, as the passengers' Spokesman. Thus,. we find repeated complaints of overcrowding and of insufficient leg room, and so on. When we come to such matters as engine design, it-is rather difficult to decide whether the designer or the driver is at fault. Complaints of excessive engine vibration, pleas for larger engines and higher gear ratios, show perhaps a tendency to overdrive and habitually to disregard the legal limit • rather than 'any serious shortcomings in the types of engine in use.
There seems to be a unanimous feeling that chassis are unduly high, and that methods of entry to and exit from the coach need much improvement, which could 'be obtained .by lowering the whole.
The glare Of epproaching headlights, the difficulty of hearing overtaking vehicles, and the various problems of The open road receive consideration.
Taking matters on the -whole, the burden of drivers' criticism seems chiefly to fall upon those features the existence Of which is largely unavoidable when freight-carrying chassis are used for passenger-carrying purposes. We have repeatedly insisted that the present-day coach is a vehicle in the transition stage. The Show now reveals marked
progressive tendencies in design. In due course, therefore, we may confidently expect that the criticisms of bath the driver and the passenger will be forestalled, and that the passenger vehicle will emerge from its transition stage as the perfect coach.