HOUSING GLASGOW'S MUNICIPAL BUSES.
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A Well-equipped Garage Which Has Recently Been Opened to Accommodate a Growing Fleet.
TIERING recent years the city of LI Glasgow has been very much in the limelight in connection with passenger-transport affaim and the operation of motorbuses to and from the city has given rise to many problems. The corporation has recently developed' its bus service to a very marked extent, and it will be recalled that, some months ago, it placed a big order for Leyland Titan buses. At the time when our analysis of municipal bus
services was published in February last the corporation actually had a fleet of 128 buses in service, 116 of these being of Leyland make and the others of Albion construction. With the exception of 16 32-seater vehicles lite fleet consists of 51-seater doubledeckers.
In order to provide adequate accommodation for its growing fleet the vorporation has found it necessary to enlarge its garaging facilities, and as recently as April 29th opened a new garage at Larkfield. The ground on which this garage has been built was originally purchased by the tramways department of the corporation with the iutention of erecting a large shop for building and repairing tramcars, but about one-fifth of the space has now been used for providing a bus garage.
The new depot tueasures 300 ft. by 220 ft. and the building has been erected at a cost of i33,400. The heating of the garage is._ effected by a Cochran steam boiler, 'heater units being mounted on the columns. These heaters are composed of rows of tubes arranged in sections, steam from the boiler passing through them. On the outside of each unit is a motor-driven fan which forces air through the heater, from which it then passes along vertical tubes to within .2 ft. of the ground, from w-hich point it is directed at right-angles along the floor.
So far as fuel arrangements are concerned there are four Bewser pumps, two being iuside and two outside the garage. These pumps are worked by air supplied from a compressor and coupled by a pipe-line to the pumps. With each stroke of the pump five gallons of petrol are raised from the under,ground tanks, each of which hes a capacity for 5,000 gallons of spirit.
The garage has four bays, the first of which is taken up by offices, stores, workshops, etc., whilst the second bay, which is 40 ft.' wide houses the petrol pumps, the bus-washing plant and the pits for enabling inspection of the undergear of the buses to be carried out and the necessary repairs to be effected. The other two bays are each 70 ft wide and in these the buses are accommodated._
Three high-pressure pumps comprise the washing plant and they are capable of deliveriug water at a pressure of 300 lb. per sq. in. The water is taken to six washing stances and four washing guns are led to each stance, so that four cleaners can work simultaneously on auy bus, two attending to the upper saloon and two to the lower deck and the chassis. It is said that with this washing plant four men can effectively wash a bus in approximately three minutes, although when the vehicles are much bespattered with' mud, after having .been in service in dirtY weather, " additional time is necessary. A portable vacuum-cleaning plant is provided for dealing with the upholstery in the , lower saloons of buses. Elot and cold
water are laid on throughout t,he garage for cleaning purposes and for filling the radiators.
During the official opening of the garage demonstrations were given with much of the plant which is installed, the operations iiacluding bus ivashing, chemical cleaning of parts, the use of the oil-reclaiming outfit, etc.