BIRD'S • EYE VIEW
Page 56
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By The Hawk
The past fortnight's weather should teach us not to expect spring in March, and road operators in the North have had a particularly horrid time. The situation was epitomized, I thought, by the Derby removals company which had one of its fine new pantechnicons blown over in a blizzard near Thurso and had an appeal for help from the driver. A rescue team was duly dispatched but when they arrived at the scene the next day there was no pantechnicon to be seen—just a great expanse of snow. _Sunk without trace! Very Much Lost 1 suppose most people are prepared for new and more powerful British diesel engines to appear at the Earls Court Show next September, but the most interesting rumour so far is that one very wellknown engine maker is to raise the crankshaft speed of one of its units beyond that employed for years and years and years. No details yet, of course, but if the story is true it will cause more than a slight rustle throughout the industry. Might even mean going up to 2,000 r.p.m., so the story goes. The Mills of God No Stone Unturned We ought to have known that His Excellency Sir Robert de Stapeldon Stapeldon, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Bahamas, would leave no African stone unturned, no southern ocean unswept.
Those of us who attended the Institute of Transpost Annual Dinner in London last Friday know better now.
For he did just that in replying to the toast "Transport Overseas ". The ladies present, waiting to dance, must have wished it had remained there. Even a high ranking passenger operator was constrained to whisper in my ear (with the "National" very much in his mind, no doubt) "Surely he must be in the home straight now!"
Why do they do it? I can't really believe the rectitude of both His Excellency and the Institute would permit a deal on a wordage basis! Fortunately both the food and the dancing were excellent.
Lions and Lambs In recent years when the
Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association, North Western area, has held its annual dinner at Bolton's " Pack Horse" it has been very much a case of the lions lying down with the lambs of the transport world. At this year's dinner the chairman, Mr. T. S. Ireland, welcomed this development of good relations between the combine companies and the P.V.O.A. in the area. He pointed out that by discussing difficulties and problems before they reached the traffic court they were able to save both time and money.
Mr. T. Lloyd, of Lancashire United Transport agreed; he felt that both the joint meetings and the social board had helped to foster goodwill between the parties. Exciting prospects for the future were' forecast by Mr. John Backhouse. He mentioned the possibilities opened up for excursion operators by the growth of the motorway system and new opportunities likely to be opened for the industry by the programme of railway closures. Typically to the point in welcoming the visitors, -Mr. Arthur Bolton nevertheless found time for a kindly reference to The Commercial Motor.
Behind Every Man I hear that Vacmobile Manu facturing Co. Ltd., have just been celebrating their fifth birthday. The company's founder and managing director, Mr. Jeffrey Sass, certainly has good cause to be pleased with the progress made over this comparatively brief period. Indeed, the Vacmobile Vac and Wash coinoperated self-service washing unit is the only one of its type being operated on American filling stations—quite an achievement for the company. since America is regarded as the natural originator of such things. Like many successful men, Jeffrey Sass has a woman behind him—his attractive wife Sheila. In fact, it was Sheila's original idea of a coin-operated, self-service, car-interior suction cleaner that set the company on the road to success.