Latest Ideas In Garage Layout
Page 49
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
DESIGNED to house 100 doubledeck buses, a new garage at Quinton was opened last Sunday by Birmingham Transport Department. The parking space has art area of 6,180 sq. yds., the whole block occupying 7,120 sq. yds.
The development of new housing estates on the west side of Birmingham and the need to provide .transport for the district led to the drawing up in 1939 of plans for a new building. The intervention of the war delayed the project, and after some modifications on the score of expenditure, the garage was finally completed a few days ago.
Full maintenance facilities are provided, together with body washes, stores, administrative offices, a dining room and a rest room for crews. In one way, the garage differs from others of its type in that the traffic administration block, with social room and kitchen above, is constructed as a separate building.
The garage is entered through two main doors, each 30 ft. wide and having electrically operated roller shutters. On each door is a system of traffic lights which display a red light, both inside and outside the garage, while the shutter is opening or closing. The single-span roof over the one-storey building provides unobstructed floor space. At the far end of the floor are the pits, and down the centre are placed
three service stanchions. carrying water taps, fuel and oil dispensing pumps and heating cables.
Along the length of the building on the street side are the engineers' shops and stores. Overlooked by the dock office and nearer to the pits is the repair shop equipped with power drill, grinding wheel, air compressor, distilledwater still and benches for engine fitters, bodymakers and electricians, In the doorway is a crane for lifting stores and heavy parts. Also in this section are the superintendent's office, tyre store and ambulance,
Pits With .a Purpose The pits, nine in all, are situated at the far end of the garage. Four connect with a sunken workshop. The two nearest to the repair shop are intended for docking, and the three outer ones for pit inspection at night and general use by day. Each pit is connected by ducts to a fume extractor.
Two of the pits are specially fitted to deal with engine-oil changing, being equipped with swivel drainage pipes which can be brought up under enginesump drain plugs. Dirty oil is then drained to a settling tank, after which it is fed by gravity to an oil-reclaiming filter. Used gearbox oil is similarly reclaimed.
The. wash, situated at the other end of the garage, is laid out on orthodox lines. An overhead gantry cleans the roofs of two buses, after which they pass underneath suspended hoses Which clean the sides. Drain and sludge traps are provided in the floor here, as elsewhere in the building.
Four I,000-gallon fuel oil tanks are housed beneath the floor of the garage and feed three pumps mounted on the service islands. The oil store, in a chamber beneath the engineers' shops, has a battery of five dispensing pumps. Two 100-gallon tanks and one 200gallon tank in this store hold oils for which there is small demand.
At the end of the garage nearest the administration block there is a 1,000gallon tank containing petrol for auxiliary vehicles operating from the garage.
Much attention has been paid to lighting, ventilation and heating.
The traffic administration block is separate from the garage and on a lower level. On the ground floor a large conductors' pay-in room has hatches communicating with the clerks' office. The district inspector and the timetable department have offices in this section. Qn the floor above, dining room and kitchen facilities provide snacks or complete meals. The traffic office can call crews standing-by in the block by means of a microphone and a system of loudspeakers.