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London Transport's Biggest Battle

24th October 1947
Page 32
Page 32, 24th October 1947 — London Transport's Biggest Battle
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE story of how London's bus services have been kept going in the face of heavy odds during the past months was made public last week when Mr. A. A. M. Durrant, C.B.E., M.I.Mech.E., chief mechanical engineer (road services), London Transport, said that during this period London Transport had passed through the gravest crisis that it had ever met.

All through 1947 a bitter fight had been waged to avert the major breakdown which was continually in sight. After the war, 3,000 buses were ordered, as well as large quantities of spare parts. Neither buses nor spares were forthcoming, however, owing to the national labour arid material shortages. London Transport was then faced with thousands of buses in need of major repair in addition to those which were running but had outlived their normal life.

Specialists scoured Britain to find spares for the buses. They even snatched unfinished spares from manufacturers and rushed them to Chiswick works. Improvised methods were employed to finish them. "Desert warfare methods" were also used, in that the oldest buses were dismantled and every serviceable part from them was utilized so as to be able to keep the remainder of the buses on the road.

Special heavy repair units were organized at garages and carried out work which had never been done before except in the central workshops. Even new body sides were Sent out to garages and put on buses under these improvised methods. Arrangements were also made to have bodies overhauled at outside factories, a step which had never been taken before.

Workshops staff made such heavy items as crankcases and differentials, whilst a unique system for giving pistons a new lease of life was brought into use. In some cases, bus bodies, 16 years old or more, were completely rebuilt into first-class buses. lit involved far more work than producing a new body, but it had to be done to save the situation.

Technicians worked in the plants of manufacturers and authorized on the spot the use of alternative materials when the proper ones were not available. Where breakdowns in the plants of manufacturers caused a bottleneck, the Board even arranged for the machinery to be repaired. Engineers went right back to forges and rolling mills in order to expedite the supply of spares.

In the course of all this make-do-andmend, the safety factor was never forgotten even at the most difficult times. The high standards of road safety were not relaxed.

Even recently, said Mr. Durrant. as many as 400 buses have been off the road in a single day and lined up in the shops. The system has been losing as much as 140,000 bus-miles in every week.

Through the efforts described, however, there was not only a restoration to pre-war mileages but vehicles actually ran 23,000 more miles every day than they did pre-war. The nuthber of passengers, however, had increased by 1,000,000 a day, also the individual passenger was making a longer journey, his mileage having increased from 1.9 before the war to 2.3 at the present time. Now, however, said Mr. Durrant, the outlook was considerably brighter. The Board had recently received the first 80 of those long-delayed post-war buses, and it was hoped to receive another • 80 before Christmas, and thereafter to build up to something over 100 new buses a month.

The policy of hiring coaches, he said, would help also. Nearly all central bus routes were to be augmented when 350 luxury coaches entered into service on October 27.

These coaches will stop at all usual stopping places and fares will be identical with the fares on the ordinary buses.. They will be allotted to routes which need them-most.

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People: M. Durrant
Locations: London

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