Confucius He Say...
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Q0lviE advice given last week to mechanics by Cam. P..-) G. E. T. Eyston deserves a far wider audience. He urged them to develop analytical minds, so that they could describe things clearly. " If you are describing a process or piece of mechanism," he said '' you need to do so as if you were communicating with someone in China."
Most of the descriptions of processes and mechanism that I receive from technicians appear to have been written by someone•in China.
BRS 1
'THERE is now no question as to Maj.-Gen. G. N. Russell 1 being head of British Road Services. His new Humber bears the registration index BRS I. It has been transferred from a discarded parcels vehicle . which he found in Aberdeen.
British Link
QTEALING a sidelong glaiice as he took his seat at the • --) Society of Automotive Engineers' conference in Atlantic City, my colleague, John F. Moon, was surprised to find that he was sitting next to •Mr. A: J. Romer, of the A.C.V. group. Seven days later they met again at the truck and bus division of General motors in Pontiac. Michigan, We Britons must hang together.
Missing Link
INCIDENTALLY, Mr. Moon did not find the Americans
as open-minded and forthcoming as he had been led to believe. They were distinctly reluctant to discuss future technical developments and even more reticent about the performance of their vehicles. They had mountains of publicity Walt to offer, but when Mr. Moon wanted to take his own figures it was a very different story.
Eventually a manufacturer was persuaded to supply a vehicle for test and the performance was remarkable. But another maker, having thought the matter over carefully
during the week-end, decided that he could not afford the expense of filling a bus with sandbags.
Not the Answer
UNEXPECTED support for the passenger transport associations in their opposition to the Minister of Transport's proposals for the use of 12-seaters as buses comes from the British Transport Commission's annual report. It points out that it would cost more to run 12-14-seaters than the one-man-operated 35-seaters which are now being widely introduced. The smaller vehicles. would be unable to deal with peak traffic and it would be necessary to have stand-by vehicles and drivers to cover occasional needs.
Incidentally, the bus companies owned by the Commission work some 200m, bus-miles a year on unremunerative services. Small buses are not the means to make them pay.
The Pessimist
rAVERCOME by pessimism at the prospect of 10m, vehicles on the road by 1965, without a corresponding increase in road space, a student of licensing tells me believes that eventually the Licensing Authorities may have to restrict the number of goods vehicles. He foresees a time when legislation will be passed requiring proof of the breaking up of old vehicles before a new one is licensed. I hope this sense of frustration has not communicated itsOf to the Minister of Transport.
Coincidence
APAPER entitled " Photo-Elastic Investigation of Stresses in the Heads of Thick Pressure-Vessels" has been published by the-Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Any similarity between this treatise and a psycho-analytical report on the mental processes of politicians is purely .fortuitous.