Promising Features in COACH CONSTRUCTION
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THE '.essential features of coach and bus bodywork are common to the products of most modern coachbuilders, but every designer has his own ideas regarding equipment and arrangement, and we seldom visit the works of a coachbuilding concern without coming across important innovations and useful improvements in detail.
Some well-equipped coaches are now being completed at the works of Duple Bodies and Meters, Ltd.,to the order of Elliott Bros. (Bournemouth), Ltd., and on the occasion of a recent inspection of them we were • able to examine many other coach and bus bodies incorporating features which will be of interest to our readers. One class of coach built for the Bournemouth concern was described in our issue dated April 30th last, but at that time details were not available of the new type of coach being constructed for this company. This is equipped with a Barwatt folding head that is arched in shape,
thus resulting in a clerestory-topped allweather vehicle • of quite an unusual kind. Several coaches with special heads are now under construction and the first of them has just recently been put into service.
The Barwatt folding head is one with which our readeis will be familiar, but this adaptation of it is worthy of special not/e, as it has certain advantages over the usual type. The object of the designers has been to obtain
"...more headroom where it is most needed, namely, above the centre" gangway. To attain this end, they have used a. Barwatt
a42 head having a deeply arched crosssection and occupying only the central portion of the roof. The notched duralumin rails on which the hoop-sticks run are mounted about 20 ins, in from the sides of the roof.
Control Gear for the Barwatt Head.
The operating geur for the head is controlled by 'a handle mounted-in the foremost hoop-stick; this actuating the toothed wheels at the extremities by means of bevel gearing and two driving rods. It is a simple arrangement and, in the case of the clerestorysectioned head, the gear occupies less space than it does in the ordinary kind of Barwatt head encompassing the full
width of the roof. • The coaches for Elliott Bros. (Bournemouth), Ltd., have a fixed rear dome, against which the folded head conveniently lies, To continue the line of the roof from front to rear, tbe -rear dome is also made with a clerestory section, and a well for the housing of
passengers' luggage is let into the arched centre portion ofl the dome in suet' a way that it is not -visible from the side of the vehicle ; by this means the use of luggage rails has been avoided and the pleasant lines of the roof are unimpaired. For the purpose of loading and unloading luggage, the roof is reached by .way of a set of strongly. mounted folding steps. .
One or two of the interior features of these coaches are worthy of mention. For instance, to overcome the difficulty of removing -window curtains for washing and replacement the Duple Co. has employed springloaded cprtain rails at the • top And bottom of each .window ; these can be removed in acouple of seconds. Another trouble-saving device is iir)ntal hook bolted to the window pillar which secures the 'curtain. when it is folded and obviates the use of untidy tapes or cords.
We riot icedthat the Duple concern is fitting a small circular window in the glass partition separating the driver's cab from the interior of ' the body, and wo understand that the officials at Scotland Yard are particularly pleased with this device. The window is opened by the release of a spring and it enables a passenger to speak to the driver without being able to touch him.
Another coach recently delivered by Duple Bodies and Motors, Ltd:, which attracted our attention was a 28-seater 1.7illing-Stevens built for West London Coaches, an interesting feature of which was the full-width locker at the .rear which extends under the rearmost seats, so that the locker floor is level with the bottom of the panel valances.
The arrangement is one which West London Coaches has always specified and it affords uncommonly large space for luggage, access to which is gained by two wide doors. In one of these a glass number-plate has been atted having an electric lamp mounted behind it in a neat wooden box.
In the waist-rail above the rear locker of this vehicle another glass panel is mounted, behind which celluloid stencils are inserted as route indicators, these being illuminated by electric lights. For the purpose of changing the stencils, the squab of the rearmost seat is made to hinge forward • from the bottom. This Tilling-Stevens coach has a near-side entrance located " behind the front row of seats, as in the ease of the Royal Blue coaches- an innovation which seems to have come to stay.
in view of the attention now being given to the question of fire risks on coaches, it is particularly interesting to learn that the Duple concern is now standardizing on a kind of non-inflammable fibre matting. Whenever fibre mats are specified this unburnable sort is used, and operators are very pleased with it because many, of them have had considerable trouble due to fibre mats becoming ignited as the result of lighted matches being dropped on them.
Duple Bodies and Motors, Ltd., advocates the lining of ceilings, pillars and even garnish-rails with leathercloth, and the inspection of a Gilford coach finished in this fashion to the irder of Whites, Ltd., of Camberley, at once revealed to, us its advantages. Apart from being comfortable to rest against and pleasing in appearance, it is, perhaps, more easily -cleaned than any other form of lining. The Gilford coach which we saw WaS lined with a white leather-cloth and was -particularly smart.
Many of the forward-conttol coaches now leaving the Duple works have the driver's cab separately built up. on the chassis, the object of this form of construction being that the cab can be removed independently when important engine overhauls have to be effected. A stout steel loop is usually bolted to the main wood-member of the canopy to facilitate the lifting of the cylinder block—a very practical feature.