For Off the Road But On the Hard
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The Industrial Truck is an Essential Factor in "Innermost Zone" .Transport. Attractive 'Features of Latest Douglas Model
PROBLEMS in connection with quick tumround, with factory production, and in many other fields, can often be solved with the aid of that means for transport commonly known as the industrial truck. This useful vehicle, which, in the main, is confined to operation within dock, factory and warehouse sites and the like, comes in for little limelight, as compared with its bigger brothers of the road. Nevertheless it is an indispensable unit of war-effort equipment.
Many readers will remember the Douglas machine of this description, and may be unaware that it is now. again in production, the maker being Douglas (Kingswood), Ltd., KingswoOd, Bristol.
Built in two basic forms—high and low • loading—and available in both, with or without elevating gear, the new Douglas truck is a three-wheeler, the single wheel being at the front and serving both to drive and to steer. Power is supplied by a Douglas horizontally opposed two-cylindered air-cooled .engine of 596 c.c. capacity. This drives through a plate clutch and spur and bevel gearing to the front axle, and an ha,teresting feature is that no reverse mechanism is incorporated in the transmission, the wheel being turned on a vertical axis through 180 degrees for rearward travel.
Non-elevating trucks are rated at 30 cwt. carrying capacity, whilst those equipped with lifting platforms are suitable for 25-cwt. loads. The elevating gear operates hydraulically by engine power, and it is stated that the platform and full load can be raised for its full travel (about 18 ins.) in 15 secs.
Here is a specific example of the manner in which the industrial truck can expedite handling loads at transport terminals. A Douglas unit, working in conjunction with three trailers, was transporting cargo from a refrigerator ship. The loads were dropped on to the vehicle from the usual derrick, and taken straight to the sheds, where the laden trailer was uncoupled and an empty one attached. This was then taken back to the ship's side, where the third one was ready and the. process repeated: 219 tons were thus dealt with in seven hours.