Society of Motor Omnibus Engineers.
Page 11
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Discussion on the Paper by Mr. Worby Beaumont.
Mr. H. P. G. Brakenridge said several gentlemen had advocated low speeds for motor-omnibuses. It was only for their speed that motor-omnibuses had been constructed. It was that which had made them popular, and his opinion was that, for them to continue popular, they must be faster than the horse vehicles, and although it might knock them to pieces they must he so constructed as to stand the racket. He doubted if a motor-omnibus constructed for the maximum speed of twelve miles an hour would make more than an average of six in the traffic, allowing for stoppages, etc. What people travelled in motor-omnibuses for, was speed pure and simple. There was nothing else in them to attract them, If, therefore, there was a twelve-mile limit, the motor-omnibuses would lose their popularity at once. As to acceleration, that was a very important point. They most have noticed that the vehicles varied in acceleration considerably. Some were very quick and some were very slow, and that was a thing that must be improved upon. They ought to be able to start at slow speed and get into their fourth speed in ten yards. He was one of those unfortunates who had had to run single-deck omnibuses. They had no omnibuses in competition, and they could charge their own fare, threepence for any distance, and could get it, and yet they failed. At any rate, the expenditure compared with the receipts was too high. Of course, the expenditure for repairs in those omnibuses was high. One gentleman had advocated a 40-seated omnibus, but he thought that thirty-four seats was about right. He did not think they could get much satisfaction out of a 40-seated omnibus for London. If it was in Edinburgh, for instance, he would put it as high as ever he could get it, because at some times of the day they could get a tremendous load but got nothing in the middle of the day, whilst, in London, they got a load all day long. As to Mr. Parker's remarks about trailers and their not exceeding the length of a coach-and-four and so not being an inconvenience; a traction engine with a trailer was an inconvenience but, because there were very few of them, people said nothing and they got along without causing much obstruction, but, if they increased very much in numbers, there would soon be an outcry about them. As to ball bearings • and lubrication, there were some very efficient ball bearings at present and he saw some at the last show which looked very pretty, though he could not help thinking they would not last long. Personally, he was in favour of roller bearings, at least for gear-boxes. He should also like to do away with magneto and have high tension. The average driver preferred a high tension because he could understand it. He was in favour of a surface carburetter and would like some of the gentlemen present to tell the meeting what they thought of having an extra ring on the piston. With regard to the thermo-syphon system and the pump, he had tried both and had had trouble with both, and he did not think the pump was that failure which had been suggested. It was a very simple affair ; some were very efficient and would run for six or seven months without requiring to be looked at. Pumps were not the trouble of the operating engineer. Someone had said that chains were a source of noise. They had been and were, to some extent, yet, but they need not he if properly looked after and encased. Mr. French had said he was in favour of a large pitch pinion but he wondered if that gentleman thought of the question of noise when he said that. They ought to have a fine pitch and slow running gear ; that was the secret of silence in gears. Mr. Frost Smith had said that engineers were made the scapegoats for the faults of the cars they were operating. He (the speaker) would suggest that in the past operating engineers had not had that say in the making out of the specifications for the purchasers of the cars that they should have had. As far as he knew, they had had very little to do with it ; if they had had, the companies would have had less trouble. Mr. Henwood had mentioned his cushion wheel. He himself had often thought of those cushion wheels, and he believed that in actual practice they would be found to absorb power and have a very retarding effect. The standard of comfort with regard to vibration, as far as passengers were concerned, was good enough, and he did not think they ought to strive to give the passengers much more comfort. Without attempting to be a prophet, he believed that in three years' time they would find that 60 miles a day would be the maximum amount for an omnibus, and that it would be a case of one driver one omnibus. He did not agree that fares were too low. They would have to go down yet, for they did not compare favourably with the railways.
Mr. French, speaking again, said he used very large gears ; the police passed their first omnibus in half-an-hour, and prac
tically told them that it was the quietest machine they had had presented to them. They drove entirely on the throttle and got into_top speed in three yards. Mt. Gray was rather disappointed not to hear any discussion raised with reference to the consumption of petrol. A great deal depended upon the omnibus in the first place. Their dividends depended upon the low consumption of petrol.
The Chairman {Mr. F. C. A. Coventry) then proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Beaumont for his paper, and said there were one or two points he should like to raise, without prophesying as to the ultimate development of the motor-omnibus. He did not think the operating engineer had been considered by the manufacturers in the past. The latter had been mostly content with turning out an engine which could now run 20,000 or 25,000 miles, where some years ago it could run only 10,000 miles, and they did not care if after that it had to be scrapped. That ought not to be, and it ought to be possible to renew the worn parts. . As it was, they) found parts forced on by hydraulic pressure, which could not be moved if it was found desirable to replace them. Nuts and studs were screwed in, in such a manner that when they were unscrewed the thread was destroyed. Manufacturers had always-been hard on the engineers. When anything went wrong the manufacturers were generally heard to say that it was "entirely due to mismanagement, and if it had been properly looked after there would have been no trouble, and that part would never have failed " ; or "it was entirely due to gross mismanagement and to the ignorance of the driver." Improvements in tops was a paint that should be made; the present tops were far too uncomfortable. The seats should be placed across the vehicle both inside and outside. They had many complaints on twenty-mile runs, from passengers whohad to sit longitudinally and who said it made them seasick, practically. Mr. Shrapnell Smith, who seconded the vote of thanks, said he was going to follow the example of the Chairman who had just added a few remarks on the subject of the paper, but he would be extremely brief. On the question of accelerating, it *is undoubtedly important that the acceleration should be uniform. It had been his privilege in 1901 to witness some acceleration experiments on the overhead railway at Liverpool, and, with an acceleration of 4 feet per second per second, they had to hold on—not only by their hands but to their heads ! He should say that an acceleration in London of 2 feet per second per second would be quite enough. They had to thank Mr. Beaumont for having brought forward twineroils controversial points. It was too early yet to have final opinions upon any of the points that had been raised. The roads being out of order was one point which everybody recognised as being the crux of the problem, and in Mr. Beaumont they had a gentleman who had advanced that question many years ago. Mr. Beaumont came to Liverpool eleven years ago and he told those there then that it was more a road prohle than anything else, and he had never altered that opinion. Mi. Beaumont also deserved thanks for having advanced the opinion that the time would come when operating companies would be content to stand the expense of running double the number of omnibuses they ran now, and keeping them on single shifts. It was impossible, at first, for the vehicles to be delivered quickly enough for this desirable state of affairs. He believed they might look forward to the time when there would be a maximum of 69 miles per day and one man one omnibus. As to speed, he agreed that the public wanted speed and that this cutting down of the maximum speed limit to 12 miles per hour, if it was made effective, would really reduce the effective speed enormously. If there was not a greater speed than 12 miles an hour it was possible, as had been pointed out, that one might not get to Putney in more than two minutes better time than the horse omnibus. He noticed, further, that the motor-omnibuses were beginning to hang about the street corners like the horse omnibuses. There might be reasons for that, but it was a fatal thing for an expensive machine to hang about and idle, like the horse omnibus. If they were going to have speed upon the ridiculously bad roads of London, they were bound to have weight, and if they had weight they must have noise and he thought there were still difficulties before them in the, future. He did not see that fares need go down any more. It was obvious that motor-omnibuses did not hope to derive all their profit from their long-distance journeys, -and, further, people would not go down into the bowels of the earth if they could keep on the surface.
The vote was carried with acclamation.
[Mr. Beaumont's reply will follow next week.]