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More Talks. on Outsize Loads on Motorways

1st August 1958, Page 37
1st August 1958
Page 37
Page 37, 1st August 1958 — More Talks. on Outsize Loads on Motorways
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

WHEN the House. of Commons on Vv Tiiesday approved the Special Roads (Classes of Traffic) Ordcr, 1958, and the Motor Vehicles (Speed Liniit on Special Roads) Regulations, 1958, Mr. Harold Watkinson, Minister of Transport, emphasized that he was anxious to have further discussions on the use of motorways by vehicles carrying abnormal indivisible loads.

Mr. F. McLeavy (Lab., Bradford•East) and Mr. R. Gresbarn Cooke (Cons., Twickenham) had both criticized the exclusion of such vehicles from motor ways.

Mr. Cooke said he understood that 20,000 movements a. year of outsize loads up to 12 ft: wide took place. About 1,000 of them passed through Preston. Such loads could well use motorways with 26-ft. dual carriageways.

Mr. C. W. Gibson (Lab., Clapham) complained that the Minister had not properly consulted the Transport and. General Workersr Union and had treated them with contempt,

Mr. Watkinson said he intended to see that the Preston By-pass, the subject of the experimental regulations, was used by vehicles carrying outsize loads, and then to exclude them for a period for comparative purposes. He defended the absence of a speed limit by saying that motorways cost £250,000 a mile to build and that there would not be a dividend from them unless the maximum volume of traffic flowed at an economic speed.

Mr. G. R. H. Nugent, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry, who opened the debate, said that the Government's policy was to try to keep restrictions to a minimum.

ROUTEMASTER VEHICLES GET AIR SUSPENSION

THE prototype -Routemaster Green Line coach operated by London Transport will probably be back in service tomorrow after having been fitted experimentally with air suspension• at the rear in place of the original coil springs. One of the L.T.E.'s prototype Routemaster buses has already been fitted with air suspension on the rear axle, but units of different manufacture have been employed on each vehicle.

The coach is using a type evolved by the Firestone Tyre and Rubber Co., Ltd., in association with London Transport, whilst the bus has a system developed by the Dunlop Rubber Co., Ltd., again in• co-operation with London Transport. The air suspension units are expected to have a longer life than any form of metal springing.

Now that an electro-pneumatic compressor is available on both vehicles to supply air for rear suspension, the opportunity has been taken to replace the electro-hydraulically operated gearboxes by electro-pneumatically operated units. In both cases fully automatic features are maintained.


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