.Now for Sleeper Services on the Road.
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NVHEN once the, business man has broken away from habit and tradition and has discovered the value of covering his long journeys whilst he himself is comfortably berthed in a sleeping saloon, he, ever after, aims to save his, daylight hours by doing his travelling by night whenever possible. It is probably, not a practice in which to indulge too often, although we know men who do it regularly two or three nights a week, and they seem reasonably healthy. Many travellers who use the sleepers between London and the north share our own experience of rarely sleeping well in the circumstances. The rattle of the wheels, the curious rollings that become obvious when one is lying laterally in a coach, the noise at the stations and other distractions all tend to prevent sleep from being refreshing.
However, the habit is growing and will grow, so that it is by no means surprising that the motorcoach is to becomea competitor with the railway sleeping saloon and that two servicesLondon-Liverpool and London-Newcastle—are being organized, to commence operations about the middle of August, and are destined to be the forerunners of others. . We have been closely watching both organizations and have kept silence because neither concern desired its plans to become known or its intentions to be anticipated. With one of the concerns we have gone closely into the question of costs, and the only fact that requires to be: proved is the extent to which the traveller will use such a service.
With a coach of ample size and power, bunks for 12 persons constitute the extent of the 'sleeping space that is available. At first the commercial traveller will be the patron upon .whom to rely, and, for a time, male passengers only would be admissible. Later developments would include catering separately for women passengers, as they would require the attendance of a stewardess, and it would' not be convenient to try to accommodate both sexes in one vehicle.
As it is found possible to carry the passenger to his destination and to give him sleeping accommodation (involving clean bed linen, towels, etc.), and even to provide him with a welcome cup of tea in the morning, all for the equivalent of third-class railway fare, the competition
which the road can offer to the railways will be somewhat fierce, because, when third-class railway sleeping coaches come to be introduced, there will be an addition of 7s. 6d. to the railway fare. The normal night sleeper traffic between any two points south of the border is between 20 and 30 passengers in each direction, so-that there is every prospect that a coach will readily flad the dozen required to give it a full load. A single vehicle, therefore, doing six journeys a week, would have a revenue of £90, and our Tables of Operating Costs prove that, at that figure, there would be a satisfactory margin of profit, after administration charges have been met. We look forward with deep interest to the results of the two enterprises to which we have referred.
The Strange Limits Set to Trans port. •
A N interesting point arises out of a considera.4--1-tion of the conditions under which a sleeping coach service for the road must he run. It is that there is invariably a basic fact in all transport operations which sets a limit beyond which it would be absurd to attempt to go. There is, for instance, the amount of work which a man can reasonably try to do in a day. There is the daily load capacity for a horse. There are the limits for the height of a loading platform set by the mark and the horse, for, at one point or another, most goods have to be man-handled and a man's bench working height is about 30 ins., or they have to be horse-drawn and the draught line is definitely set by the horse.
In the case of the sleeping coach, the limit may be set at nine hours' travelling, for that is the time which may be given to a night's rest. To ensure reasonable quietude and to allow for the fact that it is not practicable to drive fast at night, a speed of 25 miles per hour may be reckoned upon, and this would give a maximum practical -distance for a night's journey of from 200 to about 220 miles. To exceed this distance would involve conversion of the vehicle from night to day use, but there would be little or no point in this, because the traveller would prefer to end his journey at the conclusion of the night's run and to get a bath and breakfast, and, if he were then'resunaing his journey, would prefer to travel in a coach suitably equipped for day travel. In the case of goods delivery, it is commonly found that four tons, in and out, is about as much as a man can handle in a day, and this is the inherent reason for the unequalled utility of the 4-ton van or lorry for a great proportion of the transport work of the country. It is because _the horsed vehicle is slow between loading and unloadjng points and, therefore, does not permit the mark in charge effectively to work to his capacity limit, that it has been ousted by the motor vehicle.
No Salvation Yet for the Petrol electric.
SO the Petrol-electric vehicle is back where it was, the Court of Appeal having decided by a majority of two judges to one that it is driven by an internal-combustion engine and is not "electrically propelled," thus revering Mr. Justice Clauson's decision. So far, the opinions of the judges are, therefore, equal, and the only way in which a legal decision can be obtained as to what is meant in the schedule to the Finance Act, 1926, will be from the House of Lords, and the question of an appeal to the highest court in the land is now being considered. We have always said that the schedule to the Finance Act, which first introduced motor taxation by, category instead of by petrol consumption, was drawn up with very little vision. It has been full of loopholes that have had to be stopped, and of analogies that have had to he eliminated. The expression "electrically propelled is loose, for, of course, the petrol-electric vehicle 'is electrically propelled. There would have been less ambiguity even in "electrically driven," for in seeking the source of the driving force which is contained upon the vehicle, it would be found in the electrical charge contained in the battery of the battery-electric vehicle and in the lateral-combustion engine of the petrol-electric vehicle. If the question be asked—" What was in the minds of the committee which drafted the schedule" the answer must be that they were thinking of the battery= electric, which drew its driving power from current generated by a stationary plant consuming a home-produced fuel, to wit, coal. But "electrically propelled" is the phrase which was adopted, and words must, in a definition of the law, be given their common meaning, and those two words mean the manner in which the wheels are made to go round. It will be seen that even we who all these years have known of the problem of the interpretation of the term, are not committing ourselves to a precise explanation!