Passing Comments
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What We Pay for the Deteriorating Roads
BRITISH roads have a total length of 183,477 miles, and they represent a national asset of some £2,000,000,000. To maintain and improve these cost an average of £59,000,000 per annum in the late pre-war years. Since 1946, however, the average annual expenditure has been only £47,000,000 despite the much higher prices of materials and labour, which make this sum even less adequate. The result is that our roads are steadily deteriorating, and ;years of comparative neglect will undoubtedly mean a much heavier burden when complete overhauling is forced upon us. Government expenditure on roads for the coming year is estimated at some £26,000,000. Yet the receipts from motor-vehicle taxation in 1949-50 are likely to be £54,000,000, and from the oil duties £63,000,000, making a total of £117,000,000. There can be no A28
excuse for thus taxing one of the most important tools of industry and commerce, unless the bulk of the receipts be 'devoted to road improvement and construction. Either the taxation should" be reduced or the money spent in the proper manner..
Don't Put All the .MANUFACTURERS who Spares in One are giving priority to the
Basket British Transport Commission in the allocation of spare parts should remember that only a minority of road haulage vehicles is due to be acquired by the State. Hauliers are complaining about the difficulty Of obtaining spare parts, and at least one has told a certain maker that if the Commission is to be shown preference, he will, in future, buy his vehicles elsewhere.
A British Bus Blessed THAT well-known maker of at an Indian A commercial vehicles, Ceremony . . . Seddon Motors, Ltd., which
recently secured a further
Transport at Bombay, has received an interesting order for 75 of• its passenger chassis for the State
letter from that city. It concerned a ceremony held there to celebrate the inauguration of a new passenger service, a Seddon bus being the centre of attraction. This vehicle was decorated with flowers, and offerings to the gods were made around it, these consisting of coconuts, bananas and other fruits. The priest conducting the affair carried a large pumpkin and, encircling the vehicle, scattered the coconut milk around it, whilst he and the audience said prayers. The object was to ward off evil spirits, any harmful effects of which were expected to enter the pumpkin. There was a large gathering, and models of the bus were presented to the Provincial Motor Transport Controller and the Minister for Home Affairs. The fleet of 75 buses, of which that honoured was representative, has single-deck bodywork •by Metal Sections, Ltd., Birmingham, the vehicles being completed at the Central Coachbuilding Workshop, near Bombay, where the function took place. Incidentally, the invitation card bore a picture of one of the vehicles concerned.
A New Process of rURTHER possibilities in Plating by Powder 1 plain or ornamental surface Metallurgy . . . . finishes may be envisaged by
a new process of treatment under development. A layer of metal powder is applied to the surface of the metal to be coated; surface and coating are then heated in a hydrogen protective atmosphere to just below the melting point of the materials in the powder, and afterwards cold rolling is employed. The hydrogen prevents oxidation of the powder, and between successive rolling operations the surface is annealed. •