Passing Comments
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Who is the Oldest Reader ? •
wHo has been reading The Commercial Motor " longest? Mr. C. W. Hutfield, M.I.M.I., a director of Hutfield Coaches (Gosport), Ltd., who prompts this question, has been buying this journal with "unfailing regularity" for 35 years, having started at the age of 12. He wonders how many readers can beat this record.
Mr. Hutfield is in good company. Greenfield and Sons (Hove), Ltd., farther east along the south coast, have also been regular readers for 35 years. So has Mr. R. J. Elkins, proprietor of Messrs. A. Elkins and Son, of Berkhamsted, Herts, a familiar figure at the conferences of the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers. There are undoubtedly many others.
It would be interesting to know whether anyone has bought every issue since the foundation of The Commercial Motor on March 16; 1905.
Veterans of Two Kinds
DRIVEN by Mr. T. A. Barton, managing director of Barton Transport, Ltd.,, Beeston, Notts, a veteran 26-seat char-a-bancs, replica of the first bus to ply between Nottingham and Long Eaton, brought a party of old folk on August 12 to a special showing of "Genevieve," a rollicking comedy featuring vintage cars on the Brighton Rally, at the Gaumont Cinema, Nottingham.
Among the party, which came from Stanhope
House, Bingham, was 93-year-old Mrs. Sarah Miller who was paying her first visit to a cinema. Alm among the guests was Mr. Josey Parkes (Juniper,' aged 78, formerly a circus acrobat, and a colleagu of Charlie Chaplin in " Mumming Birds,"
Road and Rail Loads in Russia
MEWS from Russia is to the effect that during th " first half of this year, the tonne of goods curio by road transport increased by over 15 per ceni compared with the similar period of 1952. On th railways, however, the average loading rose by on! 6 per cent. In individual items the rise was 4 per cen, for coal, 12 per cent, for coke, 10 per cent, oil an oil products and 11, 8 and 14 per cent. respectivel for grain, flour and sugar.
" Greengrocers' Lane"
RESIDENTS of Sawbridgeworth, Herts, have give the name "Greengrocers' Lane" to the twistin two-mile stretch of the main London-Newmarki road linking their town with Spelbrook.
On a recent occasion the road was littered wit carrots, which had fallen from a passing lorry, an three days later a British Road Services' lorry, cam ing 700 boxes of flowers, overturned and smotherc the road knee-deep in asters and carnations. Durir the past two or three years the road has been var ously strewn with fish, peaches, apples, potatoes, egi and cabbages.
Heat Insulation for Workers
30VIET workers in steel plants, foundries and other places where they may have to face radiant heat, are being protected by aprons, suits and gloves covered with aluminium foil. This metallized cloth is said to give excellent protection against heat rays whilst not proving inconvenient to wear. Experiments are being carried out to make the repelling layer more durable.
The early, tests were made with suits covered with small squares of sheet metal, but whilst these repelled as much as 95 per cent. of the heat, they proved rather heavy.
A Crafty Transport Job
THE Kraft Foods concern of Wisconsin recently employed a haulier with an oil-engined tractortrailer to carry a fragile load over a distance of 500' miles. It was a mammoth cheese called "King Sheboygan", measuring 7 ft. in diameter and nearly 8 ft. high. Its production required 121,000 pints of milk produced by 6,292 cows and it was made as a show piece for a large shop.
Heat-conducting Sandwich
INCREASING attention devoted to the production 1 of gas turbines in Britain gives point to the importance of a new material which will resist distortion and cracking under considerable heat and has a high resistance to scaling. It is Nimoply 75, developed by Henry Wiggin and Co., Ltd.
Nirnonic 75 has been widely used in sheet form for lining combustion chambers, hut the need was shown for much higher heat conductivity. To attain this, copper is rolled between sheets of Nimonic to form a sandwich. It is considered that this material has many other potential uses in the fields of hightemperature engineering.