LEAVES FROM THE INSPECTOR'S NOTEBOOK.
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London Wants 1000 More Motorbuses. Not All Four-tonners.
IN THE HURLY-BURLY of events since 11th November, a great many of us have tried to concentrate Our thoughts on the two connected problems of demobilization and reconstruction, the one concerned with the dispersal of millions of civilian -workers and troops, the other with ascertaining the amount and nature of work that lies ready to hand and which must be carried out quickly. I incline strongly to the opinion that the change over from war to peace occupations will in the main prove in this country to work a great deal more smoothly than any of us have dared to anticipate.
The keynote to effective reconstruction is obviously the finding quickly of adequate work for labour of all kinds, and we shall all do well to turn over in our own minds what, from special knowledge, appears to each one of us to be work that should and must be taken in hand with the minimum possible delay. From the point of view of our own industry one of the most urgent tasks in the national interest, and particularly in the Metropolitan interest, is the immediate improvement of London's internal passenger transport, and particularly the expansion of its tube and motorbus facilities. In the coming days of transference and reconcentration of population, movements of home-coming troop.% departures for overseas, stimulated emigration, national conferences and international pow-wows, this is a question for the country and not only for London.
The over-crowded and generally unhealthy and nerve-straining conditions arising from the inadequacy of both tube and bus services at the present time, call for the earliest possible remedy. The public itself, patient through long months of selfsuppression, obedient to all . sorts of extraordinary D.O.R.A. restrictions, is beginning, here and there, to show quite an ugly temper in this matter. Particularly should the motorbus services of the Metropolis be extended and increased in frequency with the least possible delay. The London General fleet is the one to which the Metropolis stands primarily committed, and it has been reduced by many hundreds of active service vehicles during the war.. It should be increased by a thousand or more machines immediately factories can be turned to work to produce them. I believe I am correct in saying that fortunately the Board of Trade already has the question actively in hand, if it has not already insisted upon early improvement.
It is rumoured that the London General Co. has under consideration an entirely new type of chassis, and presumably the huge works organization of the Associated Equipment Co. will be set to work on this production before very long. But those works are actually at the moment very fully occupied still in the production of large numbers of standard Army fourton lorries, of the type-produced by the Daimler Co. originally, a type which was a direct development of the " B " type bus chassis on heavier lines. Exactly what the plans of the Ministry of Munitions are with regard to their future requirements for motor lorry production as affecting not only this great factory but the other principal lorry manufacturing concerns have not been disclosed, although they are under active discussion, at the time of writing, but it is, at any rate, reasonable to presume that almost at once a considerable proportion of the total of the country's output will be available for civilian purposes.
Presumably the L.G.O.C, new chassis will not be ready on a proper production basis for some months, hut, on the score of public necessity, steps should be taken to urge the provision of more public-service vehicles at once. If, for the time being, the Metropolis has got to wait for the Associated factory to be ready to produce, Scotland Yard should temporarily waive some of those more stringent restrictions and permit types of chassis to be employed which do not conform necessarily to previous standards of silence and weight, at any rate until such time as the new improved chassis is fully. available. Up till recently there were large numbers of bus bodies in store, though many have gone on war service. There ought to be no difficulty in securing some hundreds of sufficiently suitable chassis at an early date,-to relieve the present disgraceful state of crowded transport above and below ground throughout the Metropolis.
Several people with whom I have recently talked concerning the early change over of the principal lorry factories from war to peace work seemed rather to neglect the fact that the one type upon which all the principal British factories have been concentrating for War Office purposes has been the four-tonner, which, in military hands, and, allowing for the earrying of military equipment, is scheduled offic40 'y as being fit only to carry three tons on active service. I do not think there are any reliable figures available to indicate the relative outputs of the load-carrying types that, previous to the war, had been standardized by commercial-vehicle manufacturers, but it has to be remembered that there were then a very considerable number of other well-known models, ranging from 10-cwt. machines to 5 and 6-tonners, examples of all of which types were produced in most of the factories. Indeed, the principal makers each listed a most comprehensive range of load-carrying models, and, although the concentration on the four-tonner for war purposes and the consequent accumulation of large numbers of this model is certain to have the effect of increasing the number of users who will incline to it as a generally useful size, nothing has occurred to justify the belief that many different trades will not still require, models of greater or less capacity for special purposes.
The question of reconstruction, therefore, for the commercial-vehicle industry is not one solely of a. continuance of manufacture of the Army's standard model, or of a comparatively exclusive modification of it, but one of a very considerable change over to patterns which have perforce been entirely neglected for war purposes. In the case of the steam wagon and the tractor, the makers of these particularly British models were very late in the day kept busy by the War Office. The factories producing these machines thus have already an output of types that are normal and standardized commercial types, and the change over in such cases will, in reality, be only one of customers and not of components. The number of delivery vans which are not suitably snounted on a 4-ton chassis that will probably be required in the near future is very large indeed. Whilst municipalities, haulage concerns and other users of heavier units have already ordered large numbers of four-tonners, there are other prospective users of smaller types who are, to my knowledge, gloating over the idea that they are going to pick up returned Army four-tormers sooner or later at rock-bottom prices. In my opinion, they are adopting a most unwise attitude from several points of view. I am inclined to think that, if I were a manufacturer, I should get very busy as early as possible on a. type that was not a four-tonner.