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Stories Brief from

:h and bus owners

RIBBLE RELIES ON 1,000 LEYLANDS.

THERE can be few bus companies operating to-day which have experienced more rapid or greater expansion than Ribble Motor Services, Ltd. This operator started from small beginnings by taking over in 1919 a business running five buses from Higher Walton and Bamber Bridge to Preston beside the River Ribble, from which the present company takes its name. It now operates an almost 100 per cent. Leyland fleet of over 1,000 buses.

It was in 1925 that the Ribble concern bought its first Leylands. Five years later it owned 500 vehicles—a total which was practically doubled in another five years. From the early routes into Preston it has extended until it has over 300 regular bus routes covering an extensive system in the industrial districts of East Lancashire, running to Liverpool, Southport and Morecambe in the west, and throughout the Lake District as well. It also operates 53 express coach services.

The headquarters remain at Preston, where fine new office buildings have recently been completed. Likewise, although there are some 30 running depots, the main repair depot is at Preston, where all major overhauls are carried out. All minor repair work is done at the various running depots.

Every night drivers report points requiring attention. These are attended to during the night, together with greasing and any operation which a planned inspection shows to be necessary. The docking period is about 10,000 miles, at the end of which distance the lubricating oil is changed and reclaimed.

About eight vehicles are majordocked at once. As soon as the machine arrives, the body is removed and the chassis stripped of its units. These are then thoroughly cleansed, dismantled and overhauled.

All engine bearings are remetalled, cylinders either reground or resleeved, crankshafts reground, valve seats B52 renewed, and the engine finally tested against a fan dynamometer. Similar thoroughness is observed in dealing with every other unit, great care being taken to ensure, by examination on magnetic crack detectors, that important details, such ac, drop arms and axle shafts, are free from defects.

It is this systematic attention to detail that has won for the Ribble company the reputation amongst the public of having one of the best cared for • fleets for miles round.

• AT HOME AND ABROAD BEDFORDS SMOOTH THE WAY.

SMALL fleets may well demand a higher standard of reliability from the vehicles comprising them than large ,ones, and may be of greater interest in certain respects A good example is afforded by the bus service operated by Mr. Stevie 'Ball, of Dundry, Somerset, who is known locally as the "Dundry pioneer."

For this service he operates only two vehicles, both of which are Bedfords. One was purchased in 1932, and a year ago had covered over 200,000 miles. It still has another two years service ahead of it before its certificate of fitness expires.

Mr. Ball operates a service between Dundry and Bristol, and both his buses start in the morning in time to get dock hands and factory employees to their work in Bristol before the whistle blovis at 7.30 a.m. or 8 a.m. Thus, punctuality is essential. Although the route includes sharp bends, steep hills and narrow streets, schedule, it is claimed, is always maintained.

, On the next outward trip office workers are carried, whilst, on the third, children are taken to school.. Then, throughout the day, ' shoppers make full use of the buses until the

return trips commence. . As many as 400 persons may be carried• daily and the weekly mileage works out at about 140 for the two Bedford machines.

On •the other hand, 50 Bedford 20seaters are included in the fleet of the Scottish Motor -Traction Co., Ltd:. Edinburgh, these. being exclusively used for Scottish tours. They visit places of historic and scenic note, making 14 day trips and daily, tuns. Specially picked men are in charge of these machines. who perform the tasks not only of drivers and mechanics but also of couriers.

In Bournemouth the Corporation operated some time ago seven BedfOrd buses on feeder services to the trolleybuses, and the authorities, we understand, have now considerably increased the number.

Overseas, enviable reputations are enjoyed by Bedfords in Egypt, India, Jamaica, Mauritius, Borneo, Iran, and New Zealand.

COVENTRY'S HIGH-EFFICIENCY ALL-DAIMLER FLEET. THE Daimler company is fortunate in having on its doorstep, so. to speak, a 100 per cent, fleet of Daimler vehicles in the service of Coventry Cor poration. A first-hand opportunity is thus provided to study the vehicles in operation.

This close co-operation between manufacturer and operator is largely responsible for Coventry's excellent maintenance record, which probably remains unequalled by any other transport organization in this country. The latest statistics reveal that, on an average, these vehicles cover in their scheduled lifetime some 300,000 miles over a period of seven years.

Another record held by Coventry is in connection with its tremendous growth over the past five years. Due to the rapid development of its motor and aircraft engineering trades and subsequent increase in population, the annual number of passengers carried has grown from about 26,000,000 to 50,102,242 in 1938. Over the same period the Transport Departrnent's annual revenue rose from R203,292 to £361,537.

The present' fleet of Daimler buses numbers 126. With the exception of 12 single-deckers retained for country and contract work, all are 55-seater double-deck vehicles, the majority being of the oil-engined type with Daimler Fluid Flywheel transmission systems.

The problem of inter-suburban transport has been overcome in Coventry by the formation of an Inner Circle bus route around the centre of the town connecting up all the outlying districts and principal factories. The total route mileage has been increased from 43 to 64 since 1933.

Coventry Transport Department's record reliability figure is in part due to the maintenance schedule being properly planned and rigorously observed. Every bus undergoes a light dock every 5,000 miles with a full-dock overhaul after 15,000 miles. A complete unit overhaul is made at 100,000 miles, when the engine is completely dismantled and renovated before re-assembling. During the week, 10 per cent, of the fleet is out of service for maintenance and inspection, whilst all vehicles are examined every other night. A.E.C.s FORM NEARLY HALF OF BIG MIDLAND FLEET.

O'of the most important passenger transport undertakings in the Midlands, the Midland General Omnibus Co., Ltd., has steadily expanded since it was formed in 1920. New services have been introduced and others have been acquired from independent operators until, to-clay, it has a route mileage of 369 and carries some 18.imillion passengers annually. The former figure, it should be noted, does not include its special workers' express and seasonal services, which account for an additional route.mileage of 819. , The total mileage rim on ,all services during the past financial year amounted to _6,387,000.

• , Since 1936, the company •has made increasing use of A,E.C. single and double-deckers, and with the delivery of 20 Regale, ordered at the end of 1938, exactly half its fleet will -comprise vehicles of this make. A policy of using , oil-engined .buses in growing numbers has been steadily pursued.

The concern operates a diversity of stage-carriage services within an area bounded by Nottingham, Matlock, Chesterfield and Oxton.

Routes vary in length from about 22 miles between Nottingham and Mansfield, to six miles between Tibshelf and Sutton-in-Ashfield. That many of the A.E.C.s are engaged in strenuous work is evidenced by the fact that the majority of the Midland General routes lies 600 ft. above sea level. Special colliers' services, arranged to coincide with the different shifts, are found on many parts of the system.

During the summer season there are express services between the industrial towns in the area normally covered lo such resorts as Blackpool. Skegness and Mablethorpe (all established prior to the Road Traffic Act, 1930), and for these runs the company uses, among other vehicles, double-purpose Regals which are an attractive compromise between the super-luxury coach and the service bus. These vehicles are also employed for private-hire work. As may be expected in an undertaking of this nature, the standard of maintenance is high, and at Langley Mill, Derbyshire, the headquarters of the company, the most modern equipment is available for this purpose. Running repairs and semi-docks of buses working away from the main depot are undertaken at tour branch garages, each of which has its own fleet of some 25-30 vehicles.

Small defects are rectified every day; on the ninth day there is a, greasedock and on the 18th a semi-dock for petrol buses. Oil-engined buses are semi-docked at 5,000-mile intervals when the sump oil is drained, injectors, filter cloths, etc., changed.

Bodies are docked, not on a mileage, but on A time basis fixed at 12.44 months, which represents a mileage of 60,000 to 70,000 in the case of newer vehicles and approximately 30,000 in the case of older types. The company employs the dry method of cleaning, except when very bad weather renders a water wash inevitable, but even in such cases the use of hose pipes or any form of pressure is strictly prohibited.

An associated concern, the Notts and Derby %Traction Co., Ltd., is controlled—under the joint managership of Mr. Douglas C. Hays—from Langley Mill. Here the fleet of 33 vehicles is entirely of A.E.C.-English Electric make. There are 22 miles of route in operation between Ripley and Nottingham, and the services maintained are probably the fastest in the country, working up, between Ripley and Cinder Hill, in which there are 66 " request" and six compulsory stops in 11.29 miles of route, to an average speed of 14.41 m.p.h.

ALBION OILERS ECONOMICAL ON ARDUOUS ROUTES.

Oz. the 114 vehicles comprising the the of Young's Bus Service, Ltd., Paisley, Scotland's largest independent operator, 85 vehicles are of Albion manufacture. There are .56 double-deckers, of which 46 machines are oilers and 10 are equipped with petrol engines. Single-deckers number 58, 24 having oil engines.

Some 15 of the single-deck oilers are Valkyrie 39-seater six-wheelers and 5354 these vehicles, powered by Albion oil engines, give a fuel consumption rate equivalent to 10 m.p.g.

Three of the routes served by the fleet run from Glasgow via Paisley to Largs, West Kilbride and Johnstone, respectively, whilst there are also various local routes in Paisley.

Largs and West Kilbride are popular seaside towns some 30 miles from Glasgow and traffic on these routes is sufficiently heavy to justify the use of the six-wheeled single-deckers. In summer, indeed, double-deckers have to be employed at the peak periods.

Varied conditions are met, the first five miles from Glasgow being in dense city traffic, the next 10 miles including town traffic from the Glasgow boundary, through Paisley to Johnstone, the remaining IS miles being open country. The more remote portions of both these routes are hilly.

The Johnstone route is entirely through city and town traffic, whilst in Paisley there are approximately eight stops per mile. All maintenance work to chassis and bodies is carried out iii the excellently equipped depot a..4 Johnstone. A standard practice of the Y.B.S. company is to base maintenance on mileage returns, which means in practice that if a bus be on regular service it is withdrawn for dock inspection once a month. On every fourth dock a minor overhaul is carried out and a major overhaul on the completion of 100,000 miles. The approximate weekly mileage accomplished by the service vehicles is 1.500.

• NOVEL APPLICATION OF SUNBEAM BATTE RY-E LE CTR IC.

A"passenger vehicle the battery. electric has not made great progress, but there are numerous cases where the type can be profitably used for this class of work.

Last summer a Sunbeam electric was supplied to the Weston-superMare Pier company. During the season many pleasure steamers call daily at this seaside resort, which has a pier approximately a quarter of a mile long_ A large number of visitors from Wales arrive by these boats, together with their luggage, and the Sunbeam vehicle provides a convenient means for transport from the pier head to the shore.

It is based on an M.B.-type long chassis with B.T.H. electrical equipment (standardized on all Sunbeam vehicles) and Britannia 193 amp. hr. battery. Its body, which was designed by the Sunbeam company, is of the jaunting-car type, seating six passengers on each side and one in the cab beside the driver. There is accommodation for luggage behind the cab, whilst light cases and packages may be carried between the two longitudinal seats, which space also houses the battery sections.

Along both sides of the canopy green canvas storm curtains are provided. In rough weather these curtains can be quickly lowered and the bottom edges attached by readily operated fasteners to the undersides of the running boards.

This Sunbeam battery-electric has a suitable axle ratio to reduce the maximum speed to approximately 11 m.p.h. which is safe for the pier,