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Hydraulic Coupling for Farm Trailers

3rd December 1948
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Page 45, 3rd December 1948 — Hydraulic Coupling for Farm Trailers
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TWO new farm trailers incorporating an automatic hydraulic hitch, which enables the driver to couple a trailer to a tractor without leaving his seat, have been introduced by Harry Ferguson. Ltd.. Banner Lane, Coventry. They have been designed to give adequate traction on soft ground. One of the models is a tipper.

The hitch comprises a hook for engagement with the trailer drawbar eye, and a mechanical . 'latch supports the load during transport. Fingertip control is provided for the hydraulic mechanism.

A channel-section steel girder chassis carries a 21-cubic-yd. body with removable sides and ends. The two wheels are positioned at the rear and have brake drums of 12-in. diameter. The new design of trailer permits vertical movement in relation to the tractor.

" 'Like the non-tipping model, the tipper also weighs 16 cwt. The body may be raised to an '.angle of 40 degrees by finger-tip hydraulic control. Foitipping into pits or clamps, provision is made to' move the whole axle and brake assembly I ft. 6 ins, forward, so that the rear of the body can project over the edge of the pit.

The tipper costs £127, the non-tipper £99 10s.

and the hitch £6. •

DURING the past few weeks I have travelled extensively in public transport over the roads of Northern Spain and Catalonia. I have crashed down the Barcelona Ramblas in trams of pre-1920 vintage, from every available projection of which the citizenry perilously clung (17 deaths a month are reported to result from this Barcelona trick of hanging on to overloaded tramcars); I have jolted in buses (make unknown or long forgotten) every inch of the way from Gerona to Palafrugell and emerged from the ordeal with nothing worse than a good healthy, coating of Spanish dust; I have progressed leisurely and with dignity in ancient high-wheeled mule carts through the cork forests around Bagur; and as a result of all this I say, with the confidence of one wholias seen for himself, and felt it in his bones, that Spanish road transport is

worn out. .

This all adds up, of course, to a non-statistical and generally unscientific report on the state of the Spanish commercial-motor market. But it does not need a market-research pundit to discover that if all were well with the currency-exchange position between Spain and the United Kingdom, there would be an enormous demand for anything made in England, running on wheels and propelled by an internal-combustion engine.

Officially, we are not supposed to be sympathetically inclined towards the Spanish set-up and, although we did enter into a trade agreement with Franco some time ago, Spain continues to be extremely short of sterling.

As there are so many popular misconceptions in this country about Spain, I feel I must emphasize that it is not lack of willingness among Spanish importers that prevents their orders from pouring into British factories. My experience is that Spaniards of every type feel nothing but the utmost friendliness and goodwill towards Great Britain. They are waiting only for the word " go " (in addition, of course, to the necessary pounds sterling) to trade extensively with us again.

After making a conscientious inspection, I am convinced that a long time must pass before Spain will be able to meet from her own factories anything like the home demand for transport equipment. There seems to be only one organization of any importance turning out bus and lorry chassis, and that is the Empress Nacional de Autocamiones S.A., situated at La Sagrera, on the outskirts of Barcelona. ..This is a seini-nationalized undertaking forming part of the Institut° Nacional de Industria (I.N.I.) group and the factory was recently taken over from Hispano Suiza.

The company's show-piece is a chassis known as the Pegaso II, which can be used for an 8-ton lorry, a coach or a fire pump. The engine, now in course of production. is a 5.65-litre petrol unit developing 110 b.h.p.

No cajolery of mine would induce the management to give me reliable, or even remotely credible, statistics on current production; but this, of course, is a reticence quite usual. It is claimed, however, that the factory will B12 eventually be able to produce from 600 to 1,000 heavy lorries annually. This, in my view, is a pleasantly optimistic forecast, not only because of the obsolete Spanish production technique, but also because of the limitations that the price must inevitably put on sales.

The lorry is quoted at 273,500 pesetas which, at the official exchange rate of 44 to the pound sterling, comes to L6,116. Even if the internal value of the peseta be taken to be about 100 to the pound, the Pegaso II still cannot be regarded as cheap.

Because of the upheavals in Spain in the '30s (always described in Spain as " the " war) and our preoccupations between 1939 and the happy present day, there has been no great importation of bus and lorry chassis into Spain for many years. Consequently, in the absence Of any serious home production, operators are compelled to use anything, however rickety, that can still trundle along. A great dear of cannibalization is going on and problems of maintenance have become acute. It is practically impossible to obtain spare parts. Some standard spares are manufactured in Spain, but they are poor. There appear . to be no safety regulations. I felt a little uncomfortable, when travelling in a 30-seater bus (circa 1923?) to notice that there was no safety exit and that " occasional " seats, apparently always occupied, effectively impeded the gangway.

I saw many buses and lorries that, because of the many bits and pieces with which they had been patched up, were quite unidentifiable. In general, there are probably more American than British types on the roads, but a few big-German oilers imported during the war— the Spaniards' war—are still to be seen. Some old Hispano Suiza chassis are also in evidence.

One of the sights of Barcelona, it warms my British heart to report, is the small fleet of. new A.E.C. Regents recently purchased and operated by the Barcelona Bus Co. But I must hasten to add that in the case of this company and of the Madrid Bus Co., only the chassis are British. The metal bodies were built in Spain.

Buses from Britain

One large passenger transport company owning some 600 vehicles—incidentally, the largest organization of its kind in Spain—recently managed to get import licences for 10 Leyland chassis, 30 engines and 12 injection pumps. The bodies will be built in Spain at a cost of something like 150,000 pesetas each, which, as our American friends say, "ain't hay." Nobody denies that it would be much cheaper to import the complete outfit from the -U.K., but, again, import restrictions forbid.

In spite of all the difficulties of maintenance and replacement that must make the operator's life a nightmare, the business is, on the whole, a very profitable one. This is not due to high tariffs—fares are, in fact, cheap, especially when compared with those current in London —but to the abundance of traffic. I never saw a bus in the country districts that was not full—by Spanish standards too. Just what would happen to a bus conductor who shouted the Spanish equivalent of "no more—that'll do, please" is beyond my imagination, for our friends in the Iberian peninsula are an ingenious people.

I _should like to say how delightful I thought the conductors on the Catalonian country bus routes. ..In appearance they are as brigands returning from a rather tough foray in the mountains. En route they sit at their ease in a passenger seat, smoking something or other peculiar to Spain, quite imperturbably watching the customers struggling for another inch or so of space.

Not for them the labour of punching tickets; these are issued at bus stations or agencies by other brigands who flash brilliant smiles or snarl menacingly, according to B14 the time of day. The snarl, quite understandably, is reserved for the siesta period, when no gentleman should be disturbed. Nor is the conductor incommoded by a bell. Usually there is none, and, even when, there is, why should it be pulled?

It should not be thought that the conductors are not polite and helpful when occasion demands. I shall not forget the genial one who carried my bag a goad five minutes' walk down a lane to the railway station while the bus, packed with impatient passengers carrying hens, melons, corncobs and all sorts of produce, waited.

As long as the,railways continue in their shockingly run-down condition, the road transport industry will enjoy prosperous days. There is simply not the capacity on road or rail to cope with the traffic. Moreover, although official railway fares are fairly cheap, substantial bribes are often necessary to secure a ticket and, for this reason, rail travel can be costfy. Passengers therefore use the buses whenever possible. In addition, there is no railway network comparable with that in Northern Europe, and road transport is the only means for communication in wide areas of the country.

Industry of Small Operators

Spaniards are individualists, and, in the main, the road transport industry is composed of small operators . running anything up to a dozen vehicles each. As mentioned before, the largest company in Spain owns some 600 coaches, but this is exceptional. Nevertheless, there is a perceptible tendency towards combines.

Much the same development is taking place as was seen in England in the 1920s and early 1930s, when small concerns tended to merge their resources. So far, however, there is little municipally owned transport, and even in Barcelona the transport system is in private hands—trams, ancient and modern trolleybuses and , petrol buses all included. .

There are the beginnings of a tie-up between road services and the railways. The whole railway system is, of course. nationalized and, in theory, bus companies operating between points served by the railways are required to co-operate. Things remain much as they were, however, for, when the road operators have paid certain legal dues to the railways in return for what the Government describes as a concession, they are left more or less alone.

The railways are legally entitled to absorb those bus companies, the routes of which Iie. between points' served by rail, arid, indeed, under existing legislation, could expropriate them. So far, however, this right has never been exercised. For one thing, it is doubtful whether the State•railways possess the necessary funds to buy up their competitors; and even if they did, it is certain that they lack the organization to run them.

What sort of fight the road carriers could put up if any determined attack were made upon them is somewhat difficult to foretell. As I have said, they are individualists. So independent are they, indeed, that they have not even formed any kind of union or association, and the Government keeps a somewhat menacing eye on them.

Anybody who wants to start a passenger service has to go through the tortuous procedure of obtaining authority from the Ministry of Public Works in Madrid. The civil servants there are as inquisitive as their Whitehall counterparts and they must be kept fully informed of itineraries, types of vehicle, fares and details of the company. The whole story and all the records are in Madrid, so that if ever the Government wanted to sweep the road transport system into its pocket there is nothing to prevent its doing so.


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