Passing Comments Take Precautions A MEMBER of the Eastern When
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Buying Second1-1. Area of Associated Road hand Vehicles . . . Operators mentions a difficult problem in connection with the Road and Rail Traffic Act. It refers to the acquisition of second-hand vehicles, particularly when these are bought from garages and not front licence holders. In April, this member purchased a vehicle and his application for a variation of his licence was not sent to the Area office until just before the vehicle was required. When the previous owner's file was inspected by, the Authority it was found that the vehicle was already specified in another licence, because he had also acquired a new machine, put it on the road and failed to notify the Authority of his action. This resulted in a considerable delay in obtaining the new, licence.
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The Importance of qATISFACTORY catering for in Coach "-the passenger is an import
Catering Travel ant factor in the operation of
coaches. In many cases, the traveller has a gloomy foreboding that the meal stop will be at a place which he would willingly have passed and at -a point where it is difficult for him to make his own choice. It is not suggested that there is anything unsatisfactory about the majority of such halts, but the memory of even one that is unsuitable will be retained for a long time by the passenger. The respective cost of food by road and rail may make all the difference in the comparative charges by the two methods of travel, and it might be worth while to give in the road time-tables some brief mention of the type of establishment used and the .c,ost of table d'hôte meals. An Advanced Stage IT seems an unnecessary imof Goods-vehicle L position to require records to Record-itis . . . . be kept of the use of a vehicle
on test without a load, after repair or overhaul. If a licensed vehicle can be run for pleasure without the need for keeping records, surely it is equally reasonable to dispense with this irksome task in the case of a test vehicle?
nISCUSSING present-day
conditions, the other day, with a prominent ancillary user, we learned that all the vehicles in his fleet carried A.A. badges, and we asked what were the main benefits he derived from membership of the Automobile Association. Our question was prompted by the knowledge that so many of its activities—hotel appointment, touring advice and so forth—are of little value to the commercial-vehicle operator. His reply was that although breakdowns on the road were few, he got worthwhile service from the patrols. Moreover, as it was almost impossible with so large a fleet entirely to avoid technical breaches of the law, the Association's free-legaldefence scheme was of definite use to him.
Big Operator Values Services of Motoring Organization . . • High-class Pig Iron nUITE a number et people
Supplied from Dagenis ignorant of the fact that ham the Ford works at Dagenham produces large quantities of pig iron, much of -which is delivered to other steel makers. The output from June, 1934, to April 30 of this year, was 254,000 tons. The blast furnace is claimed to be one of the most up-to-date in the country, designed to produce high-class material such as is essential in the manufacture of intricate castings.
AANY of the products of IVIpetroleum are liquid or solid, but there are two—. butane and propane—which are gaseous. On the Pacific Coast butane is employed as a fuel for petrol engines, lorries and tractors. A mixture of the two gases is also claimed to give remarkable results, but must be made carefully, a typical specification being: Normal butane, 50 per cent. ; isobutane, 30 per cent. ; propane 20 per cent. It is,easy to carry in liquid form, under slight pressure, and its characteristics are: Initial boiling point, 11 degrees F.; final boiling point, 30 degrees ;
specific gravity at 60 degrees, 0.566.
Petroleum Gases Which Make an Excellent Fuel