THE COST OF WEAR AND TEAR
Page 60
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Unscheduled repairs cost more than id per mile
IN a paper entitled The Cost of Wear and Tear " presented to a meeting of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers last week, Mr. J. E. Johnson, works superintendent, Tyne/Tees district. British Road Services, surveyed the maintenance costs of trunk haulage vehicles.
He drew a sharp distinction between the quite different conditions of operation of trunk haulage, defined as day and night long-distance service with frequent changes of 'driver, and those of "tramp work ", operated on a one-vehicle, onedriver basis. All too often maintenance and repair costs of trunk, tramp and local• duties were lumped together, so that the true price paid for trunk maintenance was shrouded in the maze of general repair bills.
Unscheduled repair work, in other words, repairs other than those that could be anticipated as being the result of normal wear, was so important a factor in trunk maintenance that detailed records were commonly maintained. Certification for payment of all work done was a matter dealt with by the engineer, so that adding details of the invoice or job card totals to the log was simply carried out.
An analysis of the records of five average trunk vehicles over three years showed that the overall repair cost fluctuated between 4.2 and 4.5 pence per mile whilst the programmed repair work cost remained steady at 3.5 pence per mile despite two wage increases.
Quite apart from the cost, unscheduled repair work had an impact on programmed work. If the unscheduled work built up to the stage of becoming as much as a third of each day's total, the programme tended to suffer in two ways. Labour was lost because of the need to divert men from scheduled work to deal with the unexpected items, but in addition the traffic department became unwilling to allow further vehicles to be called in for programmed work.
Satisfactory Liaison Essential
This situation could result in a serious dilemma, and much depended on the engineer and his team being able to produce an effort that would turn the tide. Satisfactory liaison between the engineer and the head of the traffic department was essential to gain a breathing space to regain lost ground, and without this the battle to keep on top of the work and maintain repair programmes was more or less lost from the start. The constant challenge might
be enjoyed if the engineer was of an optimistic nature but would place him "fiat_ on his back" if his attitude and outlook were otherwise.
By splitting the repair bill of the five "guinea pig" truck vehicles into three sections, for normal service attention, heavy programmed repair work and unscheduled repairs respectively, the true picture became clear. Each vehicle was a first-class machine, having a stout oil engine, tried and proved transmission and brakes. Each had enjoyed a run-in period of several months of tramp work before joining the " out-all-night " brigade.
Conditions of vehicle welfare became very different. Gone was the interested and thoughtful driver who loaded the vehicle with care, cleaned it, maintained sump and coolant levels, and correct tyre pressures. Instead, different drivers worked it on night trunk service, whilst two more shunted or loaded and offloaded at each end during the day. None of them was particularly attached to ?t, nor especially interested in its welfare is with the one tramp driver. Their job was more complicated and more tightly scheduled.
One Thought in Mind A shunter, loading up at one end of the trunk route, rushed through the vehicle's daily attention detail and handed over to the night driver, who, as a rule, had one thought in mind, namely, the distance he had to travel that night. Although he could not shorten the miles, he could shorten the driving time.
Thus the vehicle was worked really hard until daybreak. After 200 miles, another man took over. There was no oil or water check here, after 10 hours' running, and the vehicle was off "full bore" for possibly another 50 miles to the delivery point. There would be some rather rough and hurried handling during the day, in order to cope with the delivery and collection, a fuel, oil and water top-up, a close look at the lights and wiper, a not-so-close "kick around the tyres" and then back up the 50 miles to the change-over point. Another fast night run, and so the endless belt began and continued week in, week out.
The vehicle was washed now and then, but quickly became more and more untidy, with battered wings, scarred chock rails, doors beginning to rattle and a grubby and smelly motor due to toppine-up spillage. At 5,000 miles, it was called in for inspection, and this was no longer the straightforward business
of tramp days. A large list began to build up, as follows: brakes down on stopping power, off-side front wing split, driver's door glass broken, oil loss at first wormshaft seal, cracked main plate on nearside rear spring, one injector in trouble, and numerous new scars on the cab and bodywork. The work was done and, later, costed and it was found that 0.92 pence was being added to the cost of each mile during the first 5,000 on trunk work. This was additional to the 1.85 pence per mile for normal service attention from new, and when on tramp work.
Eight days later a driver's report read "Dynamo off charge, rear nearside wing blown flat under the body by an exploding tyre." A service generator was located "just in case ", and a metal worker was earmarked for evening overtime to deal with the battered wing before the night trip. The service dynamo was found to be necessary, a 9.00-20 cover, tube and flap were written off as scrap, the wing ,reshaped and the vehicle moved off on time.
Flooded with Fuel The two incidents were evidently unrelated, but later it was learnt that the vehicle had run out of fuel, which was brought to it by non-mechanical staff. The wrong point was used to " bleed" the fuel system clear of air. The defective generator was found to be flooded with fuel oil, which accounted for one fault, and it seemed probable that a tyre check was missed as the vehicle carried on to load instead of checking in for fuel at the normal point. Did the driver who neglected to check his tank also miss a soft tyre, which later " btew off ", with another driver at the wheel? Either way, the record required an entry, which was £47 I3s. 6d., labour and material, and there was only one column for it—" unscheduled."
Mr. Johnson's paper related quite a number of similar instances concerning four of the five vehicles included in the survey, and quoted the cost per mile figures given in the table.