Answers to Queries.
Page 17
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Depreciation Scale. • [2478] (Eghatn).—The best way for you to depreciate your machine is to estimate that it will have a total life of 125,000 miles, and, therefore, to write it off pro rata.
A Commercial Wind and Weather Screen.
[2479] (Leicester).—We recommend you to write. to the makers of the Aveling windscreen—T. C. Aveling and Co., Ltd., 91, New Canal Street, Birmingham.
Hiring Out a Five-tonner at ls. a Mile.
[2480] (Darlington).—We have pasted one of our free, standard, working-cost sheets. You are undoubtedly charging too little for your five-ton Halley. Costs should be based on at least is. 3d. per mile, if you are to have a satisfactory margin of profit, reckoning loaded and unloaded mileage together.
Battery Vehicles for a Milk Round.
[2481] (Northallerton).—Several types of electric vehicles which were offered until recently for use in this country were of enemy origin. Under the circumstances, you will obtain all the information you require if you apply to the Edison Accumulators, Ltd., Duke Street, Piccadilly, London, W., or, for the Baker electric vehicles, to Woiseley Motors, Ltd., Adderley Park, Birmingham.
His 25 h.p. Second-hand Pleasure Car.
[2482] (Conversion).—It is possible that you might be able to carry up to 15 cwt. on the machine, although we always deprecate attempts to adapt second-hand pleasure-car chassis for commercial-vehicle purposes. You will obviously have to gear it down if you want to avoid trouble, and you must consider carefully whether you can afford to run it on pneumatic tires, or, if not, when you fit it with solids, whether various parts of the chassis will withstand the change.
Inventing a Water-tube Boiler.
[2483] (Cheshire).--Water-tube boilers are out of favour with motor-wagon manufacturers. The smoketube boiler is practically universally preferred. We cannot hold out any encouragement to you that you will succeed in getting your new water-tube boiler taken up, and especially so at the present time. The success of smoke-tube boilers, and particularly of the locomotive type, has been so marked, that further experiments with water-tube boilers in heavy motor vehicles will not, we are well satisfied, be entertained.
Commissions in the A.S.C., M.T.
[2484] (Cornwall).—There should be no difficulty in your covering the cost of your outfit from the Government grant. The question as to whether you can keep your daily expenses down to be covered by your allowance will rest entirely upon your individual tastes. Normally, you should be able to cover them. We do not know whether you have yet ascertained, but it is a fact that a very large number of applications for commissions in the Army Service Corps has been made, and of course the waiting list has been a very considerable one for a month or so past. The Corps is 70 officers over strength.
A Dissatisfied Territorial.
[2485J (Non-Com.).—We recommend you not to take your discharge, but to try to persuade your commanding officer to sanction a transfer: You will need to keep your officers on your side, to secure this step. It goes badly with any man in military circles, from the point of view of discipline, that he should fall foul of his officer, however much justification there may be in your case. There is no opportunity for us to investigate that, so you will not, of course, expect us to gave any opinion.. We hope it is not too late for you to adopt the course which we suggest, as we feel it is the onty one that will have a successful issue from the point of view of your employment during the war in the Mechanical Transport Service of the Army.
Minimum Hiring Rate Per Mile for Five-ton Steamer.
[2486] (Swindon).—Our free sheet of standard working costs (copy mailed direct) will be of some help to you in respect of actual outgo on a five-ton steam wagon. It will not pay you as a contractor to work under Is. 3d. per mile run, unless on very special jobs where there is no delay and little risk. You will be better without work at a, lower figure than Is. 3d. per mile run, adding together loaded and light runmng, as a general rule. We know of many cases where Is. 6d. and is. 9d. are properly earned and paid. Termin.al delays and class of load have direct bearing on the appropriateness of any charge.
Second and Third Men.
[2487] (Northumberland).—If a motor lorry or tractor is built and used under the Heavy Motor Car Order, 1904, a third man is at no time required. The by-law about a man at the back of a trailer or train of wagons applies to engines and vehicles which work under the Locomotives Act of 1898, and not to heavy motorcars. If the brakes upon the motor wagon are so constructed and arranged that neither of them can be used without bringing into action simultaneously the brake attached to the trailer, or if the brake of the trailer can be applied from the motorcar independently of the brakes of the trailer, no second man is required, let alone a third man. This is laid down in Article III (3) of the Motor Cars (Use and Construction) Order of 1904.
Water for a Training Camp. .
[2488] (Colonel).—Few steam lorries can take more than 1150 gallons of water (or at the most 1250 gallons) in a tank. If any lorry were to take more' it would exceed the legal maximum of 12 tons. No manufacturer of such a vehicle is in a position just now to give prompt delivery, except to the War Office. You might be able to requisition what you want through headquarters. Alternatively, you might be able to hire something on favourable terms from contractors in the West Country, such as Messrs. Lalonde Bros. and Parha.rn, of Weston-super-Mare, or Messrs. Cox and Cox, of Burnham, Somerset. If they can do nothing, they might give you the name of some local contractor. It might possibly, pay you to have recourse to a traction. engine with several trucks behind it, instead of a heavy motor wagon.
Petrol in Bulk by Road.
[2489] (Manchester).—There is no law which forbids the carrying of petrol in a, Steel tank on a petroldriven or a steam-driven wagon. On the other hand, in the event of hostile activity on the part of any local authority or police official, it is competent, according to advice which we have received from a high legal authority, to regard such a combined vehicle as an unlicensed storehouse when it is standing on the highway, but not while it is running. The Petroleum Committee of the Board of Trade completed a report early in 1913 in respect of the removal of anomalies connected with the transport of petroleum and petrol in bulk, and directed towards the legalizing of such a method of transit. Legislation on the subject is, however, deferred for the present. The final report of the Petroleum Committee, dealing with its recommendations, which might be of some service to you, can be obtained from Wyman and Sons, Ltd., Fetter Lane, E.C. It will be sufficient for you to identify the report by mentioning the above approximate date of publication, and we think the cost is is. lid.