1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164 
Centenary celebration
Page 20
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
British historic bus enthusiasts will have a 25-mile run around the Potteries as part of the programme on June 3 to mark the centenary of the North Staffordshire Tramways Co — forerunner of Potteries Motor Traction out of Potteries Electric Traction. The NSTC converted the horse tramways to steam, beginning in 1881, to be followed by electrification by PET, which ran electric trams from 1900 to 1928. "Motor" was substituted for "Electric" in the company's title in 1933.
The Potteries Omnibus Preservation Society is organising the commemorative rally, which will include an exhibition of old and new commercial vehicles at Hanley garage.
Who knows, they may include the MPT 32-seater that men in my battery found completely buried in a snow drift when they were digging their way down the road from Biddulph Moor to the civilisation of Knypersley in the winter of 1941-42.
Limbo for lorries
Lorry drivers should make good limbo dancers. In heightgauging tests in the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition few drivers, when asked to indicate the lowest height under which their vehicles would pass, set the "bridge" so low that they struck it. This is also the experience of Loughborough University, which found in a survey that four out of five lorry drivers could estimate height reasonably accurately.
Nevertheless, there are about 500 collisions a year between vehicles and railway bridges. If just one disaster is prevented by the new regulations requiring a vehicle 12ft or more high to have its height prominently displayed in the cab, they will have amply justified themselves.
A portable height-measuring gantry is easy to make but I recognise that its use may present problems. Even so, I am sure that the technical ingenuity and logistic skill of most commercial vehicles operators are more than equal to the challenge.
Mink-collar status
Heralding the approach of 1984, General Motors scientists and engineers have demonstrated "a new generation of
sophisticated computercontrolled robots" whose eyes are electronic cameras that can see moving parts on a conveyor, pick them up and put them down where required.
Alex C. Mair, vice-president of General Motors, said the company was reviewing operations to decide where the automatons could be introduced alongside human beings. Here is scope for a Dale k-type war. At the least I foresee the new master race demanding a separate union, with a minkcollar status, and the key to the executive loo.
"A robot without vision" has also been demonstrated by General Motors. I understand it is being hotly tipped for Government office.
Century for Mercedes
How many manufacturers of commercial vehicles, or anything else for that matter, can say that their house journals are, read in 127 countries and published in seven languages? This claim is made for Mercedes-Benz Transport, which is published six times a year and in its 17th year has reached its 100th issue.
I learn from the gesell
schaftvongutnichtstatistiken that the nine million copies printed so far would make a pile nearly a mile high.
The mouth-watering 100th issue of 36 pages is beautifully printed, almost entirely in full colour. The front cover shows an unromantic middle-aged male choir "singing a serenade in a small, romantic town." The 0.303 bus in the background was not there by "mere chance," says a message over an illegible signature. I am sure it wasn't.
Feel the pain at first hand
Dr Su Wang believes in getting to know how her patients live and work. She is London Transport's first woman doctor to gain a public service vehicle driver's licence. She underwent the training "to find out how it feels to drive a bus, particularly as more women are training as drivers."
I was treated for many years by a brilliant osteopath who, to learn how some of his patients came by the injuries that he would be asked to treat, first worked in a steel mill in Sheffield, then as a Northern General bus conductor and as a member of a mine rescue team. Britain needs more like him and Dr Su Wang.
Snoozeville Sundays
Hard on the heels of the Quiet Lorry will come the Less Noisy Lawn Mower. The disturbance of the peace by the 28 million householders in the EEC who own lawn mowers has caused sleepless days and nights in Brussels. This figure does not take into account the un specified number of householdeis who, too mean to buy their own mowers, borrow 'their neighbour's machine!
So common maximum missible noise levels are posed in a draft EEC direi They will be progress reduced until summer Su afternoons cease to be aur lure and staccato mower: no drown the sonorous tor 350bhp artics on full throt
Hire made easier
The dramatic increase in vi hire suggests that most p hace no difficulty in fir contractors but Yellow Pa; to make their path even , with two new headings, LeaSeng and Contract Hire -Van and Lorry Leasinc Contract Hire" in edi published from Ai onwards.
The value of comm, vehicles leased by mernb the British Vehicle Rentin Leasing Association rose £59 million in 1976 to million in 1977. This is n, but the increase in the c; cars was truly staggeri from £6 million in 19 £300 million last year.
Bargain fc toshers
Transport association ferences tend to rotate well-trodden circuit, but C Griffin, the president Vehicle Builders and Rei Association is striking out Lake District. Its annua ference in April is to be I the Old England I Bowness-on-Windermere
Two days' board and k and breakfast and coffee third day will cost £32. T nual dinner will cost ar £10.26, so for a little over delegate will be housed a in a first-rate hotel for 21/: That can't be bad.