IN YOUR OPINION
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suraging Road Travel
regular reader of your journal for many years, and ing been employed in, and taking a keen interest coaching industry, I am always following the !s of the different coach companies in their efforts ourage more people to travel by road.
ever, after my recent experience at Victoria Coach late in August, I have come to the conclusion that Coastal Coaches are doing the very opposite—and aging road travel. I arrived at Victoria Coach one Friday afternoon with approximately 15 ; to spare before my coach departed. I joined the iueue and it was 37 minutes before I reached the office. In the meantime the coach had of course d, with several empty seats. The lady behind me in eue was even more unfortunate. The coach she to travel on was fully booked but there was no displayed informing intending passengers which were booked and so saving them a useless wait queue. There was an even longer queue for the booking, and from inquiries made of different around the station I received the information that have been known to queue for up to three hours find services fully booked. I am well aware that ire many outside booking agencies, and of the lity of pre-booking, particularly for week-end travel ;urely it should be possible in mid-week to arrive minutes before departure and immediately book a
d board the coach.
e coach companies wish to attract rail travellers e first essential is to offer them terminal facilities as good as, if not better than those they would find sin line railway station. When a train is cancelled is always displayed in or near the ticket office. London Coastal Coaches are capable of doing the ling when services are fully booked.
st my experience will serve as a warning to people ive only a few minutes to spare when booking a lind I hope that London Coastal Coaches will take ) improve their booking facilities.
ngham. P. F. TURNER.
)spheric Pollution
'E followed with great interest the various articles )ur journal on the matter of atmospheric pollution. s little doubt that if allowed to continue legislation 'ere action will have to be taken in the interest of health.
lie the various articles which have previously been
published, all of them sound, little or no reference has been made to the fact that " driver education in the use of throttle and gear controls is also an essential factor for a clean exhaust. The present pollution of the major streets of our principal cities and large towns is not, I submit, mainly caused by commercial vehicles, but by the innumerable taxis and buses. In London for example, one has only to stand in such areas as Bond Street and Regent Street to appreciate the stench and pollution created by these vehicles. A careful study will show that such vehicles are being used by drivers with the throttle apparently wide open, or in excess of their road speed, thereby creating a fuel intake in excess of combustion requirement—and, of course, emission of smoke.
It is appreciated that automatic devices should prevent these matters, but apparently they do not succeed. It therefore occurs to the writer that until such time as drivers are made aware of their responsibilities in this compaign, much of the good work carried out by maintenance staffs and equipment manufacturers will not have the designed effect. In my opinion, the M.o.T. inspectors would have a more fruitful field of activity and could make more impact if they concentrated their attention on areas within our cities and towns where the greatest masses of pedestrians are concentrated.
Hatch End, Middx. F. STREET.
What is the Answer?
I NOTE that Mr. W. T. Williams, secretary of the Society 1 of Motor Manufacturers and Traders on page 62 ,f your issue of September 13, blames the operator for the emission of smoke from diesels. Why, Mr. Williams, does a brand-new vehicle emit smoke? Tell us "small operators" what is the answer. I suggest it is the fuel which causes • the trouble. Ask the petrol companies. Don't blame the operators.
Pinner, Middx. S. C. WALKER.
Instruct Drivers and Operators IN my opinion much more attention and instruction should I be given to fleet operators and drivers regarding the fundamental reason for black smoke being emitted from their vehicles. That is, that the emission of heavy smoke is, in every case, the result of incomplete combustion of the injected fuel charge from the fuel injector pump. If this point could be made common knowledge, and brought home with enough emphasis to fleet operators and drivers, then the job of eliminating the smoking and often foulsmelling beasts from the roads really will have begun. From my own experiences, I have consistently found that this problem of smoke emission is due either to a bona fide mechanical defect, or to a defect invariably brought about and associated with inexperienced tampering with the fuelinjection pump, or a like meddling with the air-intake venturi. • This interference is usually carried out by drivers who, with their limited knowledge,, are under the mistaken impression that an increase of fuel must be followed by an increase of power from the engine. There. is some truth in this, but the person who attempts to alter the balance of fuel-air ratio without suitable qualifications is surely bringing upon himself a smoking and badly-running engine.
The modern diesel engine has a " ratio of airfuel needs; this ratio is decided by the engine designers and the amount of air which is 'inducted by an engine depends upon its volumetric efficiency and bore size. To this amount of air a pre-determined quantity of fuel is injected according to the accelerator pedal position and anything which is delivered in excess of the stipulated amount will, in fact, give only a superficial, temporary, increase of power. This is because the engine's specific fuel consumption will be out of proportion to the loads carried and speeds attained. And fleet owners are financially affected to a greater degree as the following defects can be directly traced to the partial burning of fuel —the forming of carbon deposits on the pistons and piston rings. leading to rings sticking in their grooves; formation of lacquer on the piston skirts and ring lands, again having the undesirable effects of ring sticking, and the highly probable contamination and decomposition of the engine's lubricating oil. This "breaking up" of the oil's qualities will in turn lead to wholesale deterioration of all the engine's internal oil-lubricated parts. Injectors suffer from carbon deposits and will stick open, increasing the amount of smoke being emitted, and—more important from a financial angle—the cycle of wear is progressively increasing within the engine.
Shifting Responsibility
My opinions on smoke emission come from an experience of remedying these type of faults in fleet workshops. At present, I can only imagine this constant referring to the engine makers and fuel manufacturers as being to blame for vehicles belching forth their half-burnt fuel, as an excuse, by the escapist type of fleet operators and drivers. This practice appears to be gaining a larger following every day, and this excuse is propagated with a view to shifting the responsibility for the unfavourable aspect of the diesel engine, away from their own maintenance departments and pockets. If the full significance of excessive smoke emission and a realization of the damage being done within the engine could only be grasped by the owners and drivers of vehicles, then I am sure that periodic checks on injection equipment would be more strictly adhered to.
The complacent attitude with the ever-increasing tendency to pass the blame would, I am sure, die a natural death as more equipment was brought up to engine and fuel-injection pump manufacturers' standards. Only then would the sight of smoking vehicles with engines invariably at full revs disappear from the transport scene. If one takes mental note of the type of vehicles which are observed to be discharging heavy smoke, it will usually be noted that it is the smaller hauliers' vehicles at fault. The larger concerns, with their stricter maintenance checks, vehicle weight checks and specialist injection testing equipment, do not appear to suffer from the trouble. This. I submit is evidence supporting the argument that it is a job for the garage department and management to see 852 that equipment is not "adjusted " by untrained personnel and to instruct their drivers on the hazards of seeking more power from their vehicles.
Barking, Essex. A. T. RAINRIRD.
Stabilizer Test?
I READ with interest your issue dealing with articulated vehicle transport, but was surprised to notice that no one in your discussion group mentioned stabilizers to prevent jack-knifing. I am sure that stabilizers would make tractor-trailer combinations a great deal safer. My idea to prove this is to take two articulated combinations, fit one with a stabilizer, use the other without, and test them both on the MIRA. test circuit.
Another subject which could be looked into is that of overloading of trucks—this is dangerous to all concerned.
A small point which you did not mention in your review of tractive units in the September 6 issue was that the Dennis Pax tractive unit is available with Task ers couplings; both D/S automatic and Taskers SAE/SM MT fifth-wheel couplings are available.
Regarding stabilizers, I would be pleased to read the views of operators and articulated lorry builders on the subject.
I take The Commercial Motor regularly and find it a first-class magazine really worth ls. 3d. a week.
Steyning, Sussex. T. J. DYER.
[Overloading was the subject of an investigation, published as a discussion on April 19 this year; experience of stabilizers on allies was featured on February 23, 1962 (page 109) and February 8 this year (page 50).--Eol Apathy 0NE of the commercial mysteries of our time, so far as our company can see, is the apathy of British cornmercial vehicle manufacturers towards the vast and prosperous West German market.
At the recent Frankfurt Automobile Show, York Trailer Company found itself the only British commercial vehicle maker exhibiting independently in this huge show -the largest of its kind in Europe.
This state of affairs is the more extraordinary when you consider the cost advantages generally enjoyed by British exporters in Europe these days; and nowhere is this advantage more apparent than in West Germany.
Of course, there were British motor car manufacturers exhibiting. Perhaps the indifference of commercial vehicle manufacturers relates to the problem of obtaining type approvals—but this is something which can be done, given perseverance, patience and adaptability.
F. W. DAvIES, Managing Director, York Trailer Company Limited.
Slipshod Driving?
AS a traveller on London buses over a period of many years, may I say how sad I am to note the marked deterioration in the standard of skill and courtesy of bus drivers. One appreciates that traffic conditions have worsened and that drivers are not terribly well paid, but that is no excuse for some of the slipshod driving I have recently noticed. It's about time something was done by the L.T.E. to give their own staff—and the public--a fair deal.
High bu ry, N.1. E. DENNY.