COMBATING THE WEATHER
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Getting the Forecasts "THE load will go through whatever the weather." This is one of the traditions of road transport but, especially during the winter, the weather is a factor which assumes great importance for operators of essential services.
The services provided by the Meteorological Office's Weather Centres are invaluable to an operator, as a short telephone can will provide a full weather forecast 12 to 24 hours in advance. For more accurate information, of course, the later the request is made, the better. Surprisingly, many operators seem quite unaware of the facilities provided by this public authority.
• In London, Manchester, Glasgow and Southampton, personal requests for details are dealt with at "weather shops" where up-to-the-minute reports on conditions are received from all over Europe. The staff willingly give details of road conditions and readily work out what can be expected at the different stages of a given journey. At the, " shop" in Manchester's Royal Exchange, for instance. reports are received twice daily from the Automobile Association. In extreme conditions the police in certain areas are contacted for information and hourly reports come in via a teleprinter from meteorological offices throughout the country.
Although the Centres give no routine service to those connected with commercial transport, 15 local authorities and three urban councils -in the Manchester area receive routine frost warnings. A spokesman told The Commercial Motor that fog warnings were also issued and they hoped that more organizations would avail themselves of this service.
Whilst the most comprehensive service is available from the "weather shops" mentioned previously, the numbers of local meteorological offices will be found in the preface to telephone directories and a call to the "Forecast Offices "'will do the trick. A.T.
Operation Snow Clearance
MORE than 10,000 appliances and 30,000 men have been engaged on snow clearance in England and Wales, the Ministry of Transport announced recently. In addition, many bulldozers and lorries have been hired by local authorities to assist in the operations.
Most of the machines and men are provided by local authorities, but some 700 appliances owned by the Ministry of Transport are on permanent loan to them. In addition, 76 big blowers and ploughs are held by the Ministry in its own depots as a reserve to send to places where they are most needed.
The organization for clearing motorways and trunk roads is decentralized to county and other local authorities who act as agents for the Ministry. These authorities are also responsible for the classified roads under their administration and part of the cost of clearing snow on such roads is met from the Ministry's grants for maintenance and road improvement.
The Ministry is steadily increasing its snow plough strength. Its strategic reserve appliances, including 40 big blowers built into specially constructed vehicles, and 36 six-wheeled lorries with blade ploughs, are normally held in six special depots, including a very wellequipped central maintenance depot at Hendon. In addition, there are appliances at Ministry-owned general road maintenance depots situated at distances of roughly 12 miles apart on motorways. These motorway appliances are manned by local authorities. Their deployment in this manner has made it possible for each stretch of motorway to receive regular and frequent attention.
The reserve equipment in the six emergency depots is controlled and issued locally by Snow Officers on the Ministry of Transport's Divisional Road Engineering staff, with overall control by a superintending engineer and his staff at headquarters and at Hendon.