Operating Aspects of
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Passenger Transport
BUS.DEPRECIATION • RATE CHANGED
AT Manchester the corporation trans.port committee has decided to extend the depreciation basis on buses from 61 years to 8 years, for a period of a year, when the position will again be reviewed.
According to a report by Mr. R. Stuart Pilcher it has been found that the buses are Listing a much longer period than 61 years, and out of a fleet of 930 buses at present in stock 38 are seven years old, 44 are eight years, 51 are nine years, and 104 are 10 years, and they are still in good order.
Since the war, 350 buses ordered for the conversion of the tramways system have been delivered; not all of them are required for immediate use.
Out of the total stock of.buses, 237. or 25 per cent., have been fully depredated. The adoption of the eight years' basis for depreciation means that £37,300 will not be required for transfer to the renewals account this year.
NEW WORTHING PREMISES FOR " SOUTHDOWN "
EXTENSIVE new premises have now .1.-abeen completed and are to be opened at Worthing by Southdown Motor Services, Ltd., on Monday next, May 6. Their erection follows the absorption by the company, 18 months ago, of Worthing Tram-o-car Services. They consist of a large garage with accommodation for a further 50 buses and modern offices for the use of the staff dealing with tickets, conductors' requirements, wages, and so on.
The building has a well-designed frontage and has two entrances.
The offices on the first floor have been carefully planned.
Immediately at the top of the stairs by which they are approached there is a room where wages are paid, and next to that is another room, comfortably furnished with tables and chairs, where the conductors can make up their waybills and count and check their money. Here, each conductor is issued with a small tray in which he puts all his money, waybill, report and cash slip. On completing his work, he passes his tray through a glass window to the cashiers.
There is also a room for the clerks working in the day time, who check conductors' waybills and make out the records of each service to comply with the Commissioners' requirements.
SWANSEA'S NEW BUS STATION
ON Monday last, the new passengervehicle station in Singleton Street, Swansea, built for United Welsh Services, Ltd., was opened, and it should prove of considerable value to the travelling public of Swansea.
The new station will result in all services operated by the United Welsh concern and associated companies, together with the buses ran on certain routes by other operators, converging at a central point.
STRIKE THREAT AT GLASGOW BLOWS OVER
SETTLEMENT has now been reached in the transport dispute in Glasgow. The Transport and General Workers' Uniop has agreed to the amended conditions proposed by Glasgow Corporation, and the bus and tram drivers and conductors have cancelled their request to the Union executive for peemission to take a strike ballot.
The employees have agreed to work a seven-days' week system and overtime, when necessary, so that the arrangements for a Saturday off for about 350 men can be continued on a rota plan.
The normal running-time schedules will operate during the summer months, and for the rest of the year a graduated extension of night time-tables will be introduced.
10,000 WOMEN WANT CONDUCTORS' JOBS lk /WEE than 10,000 women have liflapplied for jobs as municipal bus and tram conductors in Glasgow. The transport management is still engaging men, but states that there is a shortage of skilled drivers for buses, and is inviting applications from men prepared to undergo training.
SUMMONS UNDER NATIONAL S'ERVICE ACT
nic Wednesday of last week the
Thames Valley Traction Co., Ltd.. of Thorn Street, Reading, was summoned at Clerkenwell Police Court for failing to reinstate in its employment a coach driver attached to the King's Cross Coach Station, King's Cross, after a period of military service.
The summons was taken out under the provisiens of Section 14 (1) of the National Service (Armed Forces) Act, 1939. It was alleged that John Watts, a coach driver, 'was employed by the defendant at the King's Cross Coach Station and that he left this employment for " service connected with the present emergency." At the termination of his service, on December 1939, it was alleged that the company failed to reinstate him in its employment under conditions not less favourable to him than those which would have been applicable if he had not been called up.
The clerk of the court intimated that an adjournment had been asked for, and the hearing was adjourned lot
14 days. • KARRIER TROLLEYBUS. PRODUCTION PROCEEDS FOLLOWING the receipt of a recent order from Darlington Corporation for 32-seater single-deck trolleybuses, Harrier Motors, Ltd., Luton, thinks it opportune to state that, in spite of a large volume of specialized work of national importance, which it is unclertaking, it has made ample provision for the continued production of Harrier
trolleybuses. "
Chassis for the Darlington vehicles will be of the E4 four-wheeled type, with English Electric equipment and Westinghouse brakes and the bodies by East Lancashire Coachbuilders, Ltd., of Blackburn, will have central entrances.
A.E.C. GETS BAGDAD CONTRACT FOR 50 SINGLE-DECKERS DRITISH buses will soon be running /Jeer the first time in Bagdad. Coinciding with Great Britain's big war drive to increase export trade, the Associated Equipment Co., Ltd., announces its first order from Iraq. This is for the supply of 50 Regal direct-injection, oil-engined single-deck vehicles to be operated by the Bagdad Metropolitan Transport Board.
The order is a triumph for the British motor industry, because it was secured only after a considerable period in the face of fierce foreign competition. Ever since the war began the Associated Equipment Co., Ltd., has been working hard to build up its foreign trade. Only this month it shipped a fleet of single-deckers to Portugal, and it is now constructing vehicles for delivery to operators in Spain, Argentina and Uruguay.