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Bird's eye view
Page 151
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*Cold feet
I have just discovered, after a lot of wearying phone calls to Ministries, that when the Home Secretary "dropped" the announcement that anti-theft devices would be fitted on all "new models" introduced after January 1 1970 and on all models built after January 1 1971, he was talking not only about cars but also light vans and other commercials under 30cwt unladen.
But there is not going to be a legal requirement. These anti-theft devices will be fitted under a "gentlemen's agreement" —which seems very weird. Why an agreement? Why not legislation? The manufacturing industry appears to have acceded to the suggestion very meekly—but I suppose that is understandable. It can always put the price up.
Perhaps the Government is getting cold feet about legislation, and I can quite see why it might in this case. You can see the questions coming a mile off: Is there legislation requiring special devices to prevent houses being burgled, pockets being picked and banks being robbed? But then, we are in the transport industry, aren't we?
The whole business is made even more nun by the seat-belts affair. At least antitheft devices will automatically have a positive effect, and they are certainly welcome on the score of reducing crime. I'm all in favour of belts, and use one, but what is the use of making them compulsory when most people leave them dangling from the door pillars—and especially when, however valuable they may be, few van drivers could be persuaded to put the present sort on and take them off countless times a day? To make confusion more confounded, although vans are included in the compulsory seatbelt legislation when registered from April 1 1967, they are not included in the retrospective requirement which takes in 1966 cars. My head's buzzing. How are you? Like the man said: "I should have bought shares in some accessory companies."
*Going places
Puzzle: have travellers in Notts and Derbyshire suddenly developed a passion for bussing about? This is the only rational conclusion 1 can draw from the news that Trent Motor Traction have had a quite unprecedented demand for their new summer timetables, which has kept their printers working flat out. Normally they sell about 1,000 during the first month. This year they've sold over 7,000 of the booklets in the first fortnight!
D. J. Meredith, traffic manager, believes the increased interest stems from more widespread publicity about the timetable changes for the summer. Whatever the cause, it is most welcome—and promising.
*Unrepeatable
I suspect that BR's £450,000 combined engineering depot, just opened at Brighton, may prove to be the only one of its kind. As a maintenance service it is responsible for everything from complex ultrasonic track testing equipment to road motors and trailers. Mechanical supervision is provided for some 280 vehicles and 470 trailers drawn from East and West Sussex and as far north as the vicinity of Croydon. This highly integrated scheme was clearly devised before the advent of BR Sundries division who are moving in the direction of the. National Freight Corporation.
While Sundries have good reason to be pleased with the Brighton facilities the climate in which they operate would suggest that a similar set-up is unlikely to be produced in the future. Actually this is the first time on the Southern Region that a completely new vehicle depot has been built entirely to the specification of the road motor engineer; in addition to maintenance and repairs the staff there will carry out all repainting.
The Brighton building stands on the site of the old engine works where many famous steam locomotives were built between 1852 and 1958.
* Significant figures
Although there was not much outstandingly new to be seen at the recent MIRA open days there was plenty of interest, as always, and there was a bonus in the form of demonstration rides in the latest models of a number of truck and bus manufacturers.
The new AEC V8 Mandator was naturally a focus of attention, and there were Scammell, ERF, BMC and Riaotes demonstrators, but a colleague who attended found a particular Foden the most interesting of all. It was a six-wheeled tractive unit forming part of an outfit grossing 38 tons, and the way it made light work of this weight aroused his suspicions about the power unit. With some justification—for it turned out that the Foden Mk VII turbocharged two-stroke was a development job pushing out 250 bhp. And the extra, over the normal 225 bhp, came not from a change in engine speed, capacity or any of the usual ploys but from increased boost. A sign for the future?