From Our Berlin Correspondent.
Page 7
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The Close of the Subvention The trials came to a close on Thursday, aud, considering the terrible condition of the roads here and there, together with the heavy mileage covered, it is extraordinary that so very few meehanical troubles, and none of a serious nature, interfered with the regular progress of the columns. As a matter of fact, the farther the vehicles went, the better they seemed to run. There were no Ii: ppenings aver the final eight or nine hundred kilometres, and the officers o ho accompanied the vehicles for the purpose of studying their working could not withhold an expression of high appreciation of the all-round efficiency attained. In justice to the makers of the vehicle which dropped out of line when the columns were fighting against snow and ice in Silesia, I should like to observe that the reason lay not in a constructional defect, but, I learn, wholly and solely in he inadequate gripping devices which wore fitted to the wheels. That the travelling repairing-shop should have been the only other vehicle to lag behind—indeed, to " shut up shop " for two or three days-is not without piquancy. Most of the repairing it seemingly had to do to itself.
At the conclusion of the run, I made inquiries at the automobile works concerning the tires used and the way in which they behaved under six tons of ballast ;111(1 over nearly 1,250 miles of give-and-take roads, and I subjoin extracts from the answers which I have received from seven of the manufae turers up to the time of posting copy-rWe reproduce these comments in tabular form.—En.]
New German Motorbus Lines.
Katzweiler and Tiefersweiler, in the Rheinpfalz district, have now been connected up by motorbus, DaimlerMarinefelde single deckers, warmed by the exhaust and lighted by acetylene gas, constituting the rolling stock. The journey occupies an hour, and costs the passenger 75 pfennigs (9.35d.). There is also some talk of running motorbuses between Zweibriicken and Wallhalben, the Royal P.O. having promised to support the project if the interested parishes will guarantee any contingent deficit from the working. Already five motorbus lines exist in the Rheinpfalz district, each being worked on a guarantee system similar in its character to that for the other route.
Lorry v. Goods Train.
I send you an interesting photograph showing the result of a collision between a Marienfelde military lorry and a string of trucks, which were being pushed along a side-track by a shunt-locomotive. The force of the impact can be judged from the position of the two front trucks, which are shown lifted clean oil the rails and lying on their sides, while the Daimler is seemingly a wreck on its side. I write "seemingly." for, like John Barleycorn, the Daimler " got up again, and sore amazed them a' "by proceeding under its own power to Marienfelde for repairs, the damage being confined to the front springs, spring-brackets and a part of the steering gear. It speaks volumes for the strength. of the heavy lorries turned at the Marienfelde shops that the vehicle, as a "going concern," survived a skirmish with a goods train, any one unit of which must have been considerably heavier than the lorry.