New Post Office on Wheels
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Morris -Commercial Tractor Unit with Brockhouse Semitrailer. Duple Body Fully Equipped for Postal Services
A LREADY the largest operator of IA commercial vehicles in the United Kingdom, the Post Office has found yet another use for the motor vehicle. On Wednesday, Major G. C. Tryon, M.P., inaugurated the operation of a mobile Post Office, which will greatly facilitate communications to and from big sporting and other events.
The vehicle comprises a Moths-Commercial tractor outfit, with a Brockhouse Kwikfiks semi-trailer attachment carrying Duple bodywork. Telegrams are dispatched and accepted, trunk and local telephone calls made, stamps sold, and letters and parcels received and registered in the vehicle.
The body, which is 22 ft. long and 7 ft. 6 ins, wide, is partitioned into three compartments. At the rear are two telephone call offices, enclosed by double folding doors, hinged to a common pillar. The main compartment in the centre has a desk on the near side for three postal clerks.
On the near side is a table for the staff and a teleprinter machine. An external ledge is provided on the off side for convenience in writing, and a collapsible awning covers the space occupied by the public when transacting business.
The front compartment is for storage and houses duek.boards, which are laid around the vehicle when working in fields, etc., and other equipment. Stamp machines and a letter chute are mounted on the off side, just behind the serving windows.
To provide connection with any type of exchange, including unit automatic exchanges, necessitated the designing
of a special circuit. To avoid a change of instruments in the vehicle, or the provision of special plant at exchanges, post-payment coin boxes have had to be installed in the vehicle.
One end of the letter chute is attached to the posting-hag aperture, and the chute continues to the mouth of the mail bag, so that the handling of postal packets is minimized. So far as possible, the drawer and shelf accommodation ordinarily provided in post offices has been installed, so that the personnel of the vehicle (which will be drawn from local staff) may carry out their duties under conditions as near normal as practicable.
The generator is mounted on the tractor and is driven by a power takeoff from the gearbox.
Careful consideration has been paid to the comfort and convenience of the staff, a feature being made of adequate ventilation. Alfol insulation is used as a roof lining to minimize heat inside the vehicle in hot weather.