Passing Comments
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RIECENTLY, in the Elektrotechnische Zeitscrift, Herr F. Hubrig stated that, for all local mail and parcels-post collection and delivery, battery-electric vehicles are exclusively used by the German postal authorities for journeys in which there are frequent stops and where the daily distance to be covered by each vehicle does not exceed 40-45 miles. The author states that about 2%400 such vehicles are in use throughout Germany and that tests have shown that where stops have to be made at. intervals of from 50 yds.. to 330 yds. the average speed attained is higher than that of a petrol vehicle. The life of such battery-electrics is as high as 15 years.
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AT the recent Ministry of Transport inquiry' into the Leeds road-widening schemes, the City transport manager, Mr. Vane Morland, revealed that, in addition to being a member of the usual transport technical organizations, he 'is also the possessor of a bus-driver's licence. lie. mentioned afterwards that he drove " heavies " long before the war and that he likes to take a bus out now and then if it has a new type of .control or something unusual under the bonnet. When the CommissiOner's courts Were set up, Mr. Morland learned that he had -been driving vehicles long enough to qualify automatically for a driver's' badge.
THE illustration accompanying this paragraph shows a normal Firestone 36-in. by 8-in, inner tube which has been subjected to a test to prove its tremendous resistance to tearing. The normal diameter is 3 ft. 6 ins., but it has been blown up until the measurement has increased to 8 ft., whilst the circumference of the cross-section at the top is nearly 6 ft.
DUR1NG the course of his speech at the 21st annual general meeting of the Austin Motor Co., Ltd., Sir Herbert Austin, K.B.E., stressed the importance of inspection before vehicles find their way into the hands of purchasers, and said that over 800 of his employees were engaged on such work. He thought that it was in no small measure due to this thoroughness that the Austin reputation for dependability had been built up, and added that the total average value of component parts supplied by the . company for the repair of Austin vehicles at present on the road amounts to less than 5d. per vehicle per week. This includes accidents of all kinds. THE air-cleansing plant which has been in course of erection for some time in the Elektron foundry of Leyland Motors, Ltd., has now been completed. The need for extra ventilation has been brought about by the sulphur fumes which are generated while making Elektron castings. The plant, with its large central blowing-in fan, 50 ins. in diameter, allows six changes of air per hour, A heater warms the incoming air during cold weather.
AFEATURE of the lectures on cost and charges which our expert, S.T.R., is delivering to association meetings is the little informal meetings which usually follow. Those hauliers present at the lecture, who are not pressed for time, usually find themselves assembling in sonic anteroom to the lecture hall, where matters of interest to hauliers are discussed generally. Knotty points about rates, problems of charges and some of the difficulties in overcoming rate cutting _proceed rapidly towards solution in the course of these intimate talks.