AN EXPEDITIOUS METHOD OF LOADING.
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A System Employed with Success In a Canadian Departmental Stores.
THE motor lorry is becoming so important a factor in the delivery systems of many departmental stores on the other side of the Atlantic, that it enters largely into architects' calculations . when designing new business buildings. . For instance, Messrs. Miller and Rhodes, Inc., of Richmond, Va., one of the leading departmental stores in the United States have effected considerable savings in transport costs by erecting a delivery platform in the basement of their premises so that packages for delivery can be sent down epiral chutes or belt conveyors to a central loading point.
Still more remarkable is the enterprise shown by Henry Morgan and Co., Ltd., ,who control a departmental stores in ,Montreal. At this company's premises a two-ton lorry can drive on to a platform at the street level and be lifted eight storeys before depositing its load. At this level every package is opened, examined, marked and sorted, subsequently being conveyed by gravity to the various departments in the lower floors. At this departmental store also, the basement is used for loading packages for local delivery.
As is well-known, Montreal experiences a very rigorous winter, and heating has to enter largely into the calculations of architects when planning buildings. The ten-ton freight elevator in Messrs. Morgan's store enables a lorry loaded with coal and coke to be driven off the elevator on to any of the eight floors to deposit its load. Gravity is not only used for assisting in the task of maintaining supplies of fuel, het also for retrieving ashes. The ashes are thrown into adjacent chutes when the fires are rekindled in the morning, whence they gravitate into a large concrete retainer, under which empty. lorries can travel and quickly secure a load.
-The lorries used by Henry Morgan mid Co.' Ltd., for effecting parcel deliverics have to combat extremely bad weather conditions throughout the win
ter. One day a blizzard will bring several feet of snow, while another day will see a high wind piling drifts in the open roads. Usually the temperature is well below zero at this time of the year, but, -with the approach of spring, rain comes to aggravate traffic conditiortsif this be at all possible.
When the new Morgan building was opened last year, it was felt that the winter of 19P3-24 would prove the efficiency of motor lorries to effect prompt and reliable deliveries in the neighbourhood, and the vehicles used for this service came fully up to expectations, and did the work allotted them with the utmost satisfaction.
In order to secure loads for delivery over a pre-arranged route the lorries descend by a ramp to the baseinent Here is to be found a garage as well as a loading station. The lorries are both loaded and washed at night preparatory for the first of their two trips in the morning. Parallel rows of doora. in the despate,h room are numbered to correspond with the different routes.
By pushing a button on the door bear. big the same number as that on his ' route a driver can signal to the sorter, who is working on the inside, to open the door. Parcels are sorted on racks, and loaded on to the lorry in the order of their subsequent delivery. Loading is further facilitated by the fact that the platforms are arranged to be level with the floors of the lorries. Thus the racks may be run into the lorry and unloaded in that position.
No matter how many lorries have their engines running, the loading basement is kept free from petrol fumes by a highpoweredsuction fan, which draws all smoke through holes in the windowless concrete •walls of the drivers' stalls.
Making retail deliveries is only a part of the work that the lorries used by Henry Morgan and Co., Ltd., are called upon to tackle. In connection with the company's extensive repository business they often make bath local and longdistance journeys transporting household goods. Trips of 500 miles to New York are not unusual, whilst another city frequently visited is Quebec, 180 miles distant.