German treasure hunt
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AT FIRST GLANCE, Transport '82, held last week (CM June 26) in Munich was a complex and at first glance rather disappointing gathering of a variety of exhibition styles.
There were just too many specialised off-shoots from that vast and varied industry called transport, for the exhibition to have a sharply identified personality. Many sections of the trade were conspicuous by the non-appearance of some of the more interesting manufacturers.
However, that said, Transport 82 could be split into four distinct sections, not all of which would have been of compelling interest to all visitors. They were: goods and passenger transport; systems for today and tomorrow; an international trade fair; and a long and diverse list of conferences and lectures.
The idea of concentrating all these potentially interesting and informative symposia into one big exhibition held every four years, is basically good. However, the practical result, as seen in Munich, is a rather incomplete, very confusing and not very well organised treasure hunt.
Last week's exhibition turned out to be pale imitation of the Hamburg IVA exhibition, held in 1979 but without the innovations and truly new ideas that made the earlier show memorable.
Five main exhibition halls, not all of them big, and an open-air display area, given over almost exclusively to railway exhibits, is not a lot of space to show developments in road, rail, air and sea transport — but that was the aim.
Of the main halls, the biggest, hall 16 was given over to the promotion of seaports, airports and their associated services. Things like express freight, containerisation, customs agents and the like. If your business was in these areas then days could be spent comparing docking procedures between Rotterdam and Hamburg or customs clearance at Schipol and Frankfurt.
Next to this was hall 14 which was mainly dedicated to passenger transport and kept strictly to bus and rail systems.
In many ways this hall was one of the most interesting. There was a mock up of the French railways 300km/h train, complete with part of its suspension system and the drivers cabin. There were exhibits from the German Ministry for Re search and Technology showing various alternative fuel method; — particularly its hydrogen-pe. trol mix engine installed in Mercedes estate car.
On the largest, Mercedes-Ben; showed its brilliant O-Bahn (C/Id June 19) bus concept, and ove in an isolated corner was th( mass-transport authority frorr Washington, USA, with a desi and pictures. But there we: nothing that had not been seer before. Most of it many time before.
Meanwhile, over in hall 18 i seemed as if the odds and end had been assembled around thr MAN stand.
A big British commerce stem had the Dover harbour boan promoting itself almost cheek b' jowl with the British Hovercral Corporation, the City of Wake field and Fetter Refrigeration.
In one corner Kassbohrer-Se tra had its four-axle articulate, conference touring bus with 2 seats and catering facilities thE would have done justice to th entire exhibition grounds, alonE side some of its more mundan vehicles.
On the other side of the ha was a company by the name c TCM, showing an ingeniou body system which enable operators who haul container to get a general freight bac load. It's not a new idea t conceal the sheets, hoops, sid panels and ancilliary equipmer in a hollow floor, especially i the intensive, swop-body Ge man industry, but the fact thi this was one of the most innovi tive exhibits shows just how thi on the ground such ideas wer in Munich.
Basically it is a hollow 20 container platform with six pin, In its single flat configuration will fit a a 20ft skeletal traile Two can be used on a 40-foote After delivery of the containei the platforms can be assembled nto tilt configuration by exhumng the necessary equipment From its hollow floor.
But in this hall the biggest stand was taken by MAN. Pride A conspicuous place was taken 3‘,/ the SD 80, four-meter high, 39-seat double-decker bus. 3ased on an MAN chassis with a 322kW (240hp) motor and autoratio gearbox, the Berlin bus is wite pretty with its Wag gonJnion body. Special features in;lude tinted and heated ritindows and no entrance steps, naking the bus, according to IAN, pram and wheelchair wiented.
However, with a full complifent of passengers on board, )one of which should be over 5ft in in height, wheelchairs and warns will be stretching the likeihood of comfort quite consideribly.
Two spiral staircases, one for ip and one for down, make novement between decks a simple affair, and the burghers of Berlin, the city whose transport authority ordered them, can be pleased with their purchase.
MAN's other surprise was lurking beneath one of its VW co-operative 6-9 tonners. Complete engine encapsulation for the range and available early next year, giving a reduction in noise of up to 50 per cent. Service accessbility is said to be slightly reduced even though the top and bottom halves of the capsule shells can be quickly and easily removed.
MAN's other piece of interesting engineering, its four-axle articulated city bus with room for 225 passengers, was doing duty shuttling show visitors from hall to hall — and a very peculiar sight it was too.
Meanwhile, over in hall 20 everything you needed to know about goods packaging, palletis ing and protecting was on show. From recycled cardboard pallets to shrink wrapping and polystyrene packing, but again sadly, nothing new.
Strangely it seemed as if the really new developments had been put all together into the not very big hall 19, but even then they were difficult to un-cover.
It appeared as if every other stand and exhibit in this hall was that of a major electronics company offering a computer panacea to all the ills that afflict transport companies today. Along with computers to write your invoices and open your letters, there were others designed to correlate the full consumption of your trucks with the number of kilometres covered, and still others to tell you when and how to change the oil in them.
Mercedes-Benz was in this hall and as if by tradition, the company showed something new.
The first Mercedes was a lowprofile chassis built specifically for airport catering tenders. Outwardly the machine looked very strange, only on closer examination could you see a heavily cut down standard cab, so that the overhead loading platform could seat properly. Mercedes emphasises that the LP 1213 can service all commercial passenger aircraft currently in use in the world.
The second new Mercedes continued overleaf was in fact just one of a range of new medium-weight trucks. This new range is powered by the V6 0M421 direct-injection 11-litre engine which develops 159kW (216hp) at 2,300rpm and 785Nm (579Ib ft) of torque at only 1,20Orpm.
Behind this – in its German specification – is an eight-speed synchromesh gearbox and five different rear axle ratios, but perhaps the best news of all was that for the first time ever on a Mercedes medium truck range, full air brakes would be replacing the normal air-over-hydraulic systems.
The new range is available as a rigid chassis, tractor unit or tipper chassis right from the outset, with gross vehicle weight ranging from 12, 14 and 16 tonnes. A special variant with a 22-tonne capacity is also available for special body application.
Asked when the new medium range would be available for export markets, including the UK, a Mercedes spokesman commented: "Fairly soon I would expect, after all, they were designed with these markets primarily in mind."
So with one of the highpoints of the Transport '82 show covered, it was not a long walk over to the other. This was to be seen on the Ackermann-Fruehauf stand and represented an interesting advance in trailer transportation.
Simply put, Ackermann's Kombi-Lastzug is made up from a tractor and two semi-trailers, but within current overall combination regulations of 18 metres. It sounds like a very short doubles combination, but that would have three pivot points; the tractor fifth-wheel, the dolly connection and the dolly fifthwheel.
Ackermann's solution does away with the dolly connection entirely. In fact, the dolly becomes part of the first semitrailer's suspension.
The idea, like all the best ideas, is simple. The connection between the semi-trailer is all important. In this instance we can temporarily disregard the tractive unit and the second 7.15m-long semi-trailer because they are standard items.
The first trailer – which overall has a total length also of 7.15 metres (23ft 51/2in) – has a sliding two-axle suspension, each axle having a capacity of 7.5 tonnes and a spread of about 1.5m (4ft 1 1in) (the stand example was the very first prototype and dimensions still have to be confirmed). The rear axle of this set is steerable and has a fifth-wheel mounted over it.
In its single configuration this axle set is slid under the chassis rails of the first trailer, giving an overall length of 10.16 metres (33ft 4in) and an acceptable length for inner metropolitan work. To hook up the second trailer, the axle set is slid out of its first position and offered up to the pin on the second trailer thus producing a rigid drawbar. (In fact it's not quite rigid as there must be a vertical pivot between the two slave axles to allow for differences in road height). without problem. Both trailer can be fitted with the entire arra of body styles, from refrigerate' van to skeletal, including the us of 20ft, 30ft or 40ft container; with the versatility that entails.
Both trailers can be indi vidually brought into towns o cities which restrict the use o 15-metre vehicles and, finally semi-trailer cut in on corners i dramatically reduced, makin, manoeuvrability and safety major plus.
The second steering axle i operated hydraulically usin, accepted principles an operates while reversing as wel which say the people from Ac14 ermann makes the combinatiol easier to reverse than a rigid an trailer rig and as easy as a nor mal semi-trailer. We shall see.
So that was Transport '82. I you wanted to buy you caul' have done better at Frankfur last year. If you wanted to lear about transport technology yo could have learnt about it i Hamburg three years ago, but you wanted to see somethin new, it was in Hall 19.