Coach Brakes Failed in the Alps
Page 41
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"['HE experience of a coach party, I when the hydraulic brakes of their vehicle failed as it was descending the St. Gotthard Pass in Switzerland, was described at Brornsgrove County Court, . on Monday, when Imperial Coachways, Ltd., Bromsgrove, sued for £233 16s., the balance of their account for carrying a party of Lancashire businessmen and their families from the Midlands to Lenno in the Alps.
Payment of the cheque for the account had been stopped when the party, organized by Mr. R. P. Law, Baum, felt dissatisfied over incidents during the journey. They contended that the coach was not roadworthy, and that the driver was not experienced in Continental travel.
The driver, Mr. E. F. Brown, of Charford, Bromsgrove, said he had been driving for 30 years, but he had not driven outside England.
He said he was travelling in third gear on the last of a series_ of hairpin bends in the Pass, when he found that
the braking system had failed. He dropped into second gear, kept the hand brake hard on, and ran the offside wheels against the grass verge for about a mile.
When he stopped the coach, the party got out and engaged cars to complete their journey. They refused to return to England in the coach. •
Mr. Brown said the trouble was caused by two or three pieces of grit getting into a brake cylinder. He agreed that the radiator boiled on a hill near Folkestone, and thatta bearing in one of the hubs collapsed in France.
For Imperial Motorways, Mr. D. Draycott said the coach had been passed by a Ministry of Transport examiner some months before. it was used for the journey. It was given a thorough overhaul the day before leaving England.
The hearing was adjourned.
15 NEW BUSES FOR E.V.M.S. DOWER-OPERATED platform doors' I under the driver's control, and heaters in both the upper and lower saloons, are features of 15 A.E.C.Willowbrook 56-seat double-deck buses which East Yorkshire Motor Services, Ltd., are to place in service early this month. The buses, which are replacements, will run on the !lullBridlington—Scarborough route.
COMMITTEE RECONSTITUTED
THE Wales and Monmouthshire Transport Users Consultative Committee has been reconstituted for athird term until July 31, 1959. New members are: Mr. J. T. Harries, farmer; Mr. R. P. Roberts, director, T. T. Pascoe, Ltd.; Mr. D. J. Jenkins, Agricultural Workers' Union; Ald. G. R. Davies, Cllr. J. L. Davies and Cllr. R. A. Hughes, representing local authorities; and Mr. W. R. Stevens, British Railways.