EXPEDITING REPAIRS AND OVERHAULS.
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BIG developments are foreshadowed by the Metropolitan Asylums Board to enable its fleet of vehicles to be kept in repair and overhauled without delay.
The Mead Ambulance Station was opened in April, 1902. chiefly. as a large emergency ambulance station. The main buildings comprised nurses' home, male and female staff homes, laundry and disinfection silent, and the coach sheds and stables necessary for the horsed ambulances, the whole of the latter accommodation being designed on the lines of a livery stable. The station has been used as an ambulance station for a few months only, and in 1909 it was selected as the repair shop for the Board's motor vehicles.
With the growth of the Board's operations and the expansion of their fleet of motor vehicles to a total of over 140, the works have developed to a certain extent, but the demands upon them to a much greater degree. Obviously, a series of staff homes and stables cannot be converted piecemeal into an efficientmodern vehicle overhaul and repair works, and the growth of the service and the utilization of existing unsuitable B24 buildings have resulted in a works which cannot be other than uneconomical and inadequate to deal with so considerable a fleet of vehicles. An important point in economy is to pass vehicles through the works with the utmost despatch, so as to reduce tho number required for any given work by avoiding the present necessity of vehicles remaining under repair or long periods, and, unfortunately, owing to poor works resources, waiting their turn until trivial defects become expensive.
In support, of the fine fleet of vehicles it is necessary to hare a works sufficient for regular overhaul, making good wear and tear, and for repair after the accidents which may be said to be inevitable in a crowded metropolitan area. A very considerable reconstruction of the Mead Works is unavoidable, and within a few months a complete scheme for dealing with this branch of the transport service will be prepared.
There are, however, two matters which cannot wait, but must 'be dealtwith now to overtake the pressing arrears of overhaul and repair work and maintain the fleet in efficiency during the coming period of pressure, and to avoid any risk of breakdown. The first is the provision of certain additional machine tools to hasten the turnout of vehicles from the works, not only by the putting of more men on work, which is required in considerable quantities, but by the making of spare parts which are very costly, difficult to obtain owing to their obvious obsolescence, and which frequently hold up vehicles owing to dilatory supply. The tools in question are machines of standard patterns which will be just as useful whatever rearrangement. of the works is made, but it is essential that they should be supplied now to make up arrears of work and keep a number of vehicles which axe approaching the limits of useful life in commission next autumn and winter. The department requires a gear planing machine, a cylinder grinder, tool and cutter grinder, four large lathes and certain adjuncts in the nature of shafting and pulleys. The Ambulance Committee has . selected the least expensive makes of machines which axe ,suiteble for the Board's requirements, and they will be installed without delay