ANSWERS TO QUERIES.
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Coal-gas Carburetters.
[4390] (Barnsley),--The information you give in your letter is totally inadequate to enable one to form any opinion or to give any suitable advice. Without any knowledge as to what the engine is, one cannot recommend a carburetter, but the Zenith, the ClaudelHobson, and the White and Poppe are three carburetters among many that can be recommended. Messrs. White and Poppe and F-nest Lyon, Ltd., each make a good coal-gas carburetter, as also do Flugel and Co.
Recovery of Oil.
[4391] (Makers).--Industrial Waste Eliminators, Ltd., 20, High Holborn, London, W.C. 1, make turbine centrifugal extractors and separators for the recovery of oil, grease, etc., from all classes of material, and they also make oil-settling and purifying tanks.
In the issues of 'NE CommEnetait Moron of 27th December arid 3rd January last, there is a description of what is done by the London General Omnibus Co., and sketches of a very simple system which you could readily install yourselves for the cleansing or old oil.
Number of Commercial Vehicles in Use.
[4392] (London Transports—It is 'much easier for as to give you the number of commercial motor yehi.-les in use than to give you the number of corn m srcial-vehicie users, which is obviously rather a difficult figure to ascertain correctly. In 1917 there were in use in this country approximately 35,000 vehicles. That was the number at the commencement of the 'year ; it fell off 'during the spring, then increased again during the summer, but you may take 25,000 as being the average figure. Prior to the war, the-last figures that are available were made up,in September, 1913, and they show that there were 17,715 heaVy vehicles registered in England, Wales and Scotland.
Co-operative Transport.
1-43931 (Yarm).--Various efforts have been made at co-operation in tranSport. These efforts have always been successful, provided vehicles can always be ensured a load, and that.there are clefinite'charges made for delays in loading and unloading ; without these charges vehicles under a co-operative system suffer very great delay, because they are looked on as being partly the property of the concern whose,haulage they are doing, coupled with the idea that part of the cost involved in the delay will fall on the shoulders of the men in partnership. Invariably, again, the success of such a scheme depends upon the cariacity of the man who is actually managing it,,and if he has a full appreciation of the need of keeping the vehicle running and avoiding dead time, such a scheme as you contemplate should prove completely profitable and successful.
c46 Paraffin for a Steamer.
[4394] ('Westellf).—You do not require a special licence to use paraffin for raising steam on a steam lorry. According to the strict letter of the law, you should have a permit to run the vehicle, but, as a matter of fact, the police do not worry lorry drivers to produce this permit, and, therefore, you may take
it as being unnecessary. If, however, the vehicle were a pleasure car, such a permit would be necessary.
Tractor v. Horse Ploughing.
[4395] (West Central).1—It is difficult to strike any sort of mechanical comparison between the horse and the tractor, because there are no means of really arriving at the amount of work that a horse can do when exerting its full effort. What is usually .taken as a standard of comparison is 33..000 ft. lb, ; this bears no relation whatever to the actual output of a horse.
What we think is the best guide to you is the fact that what is known as two-horse land(land through which two horses can pull a single-furrow plough) requires a tractor of about 12-15 h.p., whereas four-horse land would require one somewhere about 25 h.p. Then again, these figures are unreliable, because the catalogue horse-power of the tractor is not always an exact representation of what the vehicle can de.
Running Costs Up to a Three-tonner.
[4396] (Food Production).—The figures given in the table below show the cost of running the types of vehicles you mention : In the main these figures are rather more arbitrary than one wouldilike them to be, but costs generally have appreciated to suchean extent that we have had to increase every item from our known figures, and every increase has had to be arrived at te a large degree on pure judgment. Depreciation is a very difficult item to strike nowadays, so much depends on whether or not'an enhanced price is‘paid for the vehicle or whether it is picked up as a bargain. Garage -cleaning, etc., again, is a very peculiar item. We have sent you a published sheet of working costs, wbich was quite accurate up to 1914, and generally you may add about 50 per cent., or perhaps more, on to the actual figures given therein. The driver of a three-ton vehicle is now getting 60s. a week, and for the smaller vehicles you may have to pay nearly the same.