IN YOUR OPINION
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The Right Price?
WAS most interested in the comments expressed at your Fleet Management Conference and congratulate you on the organization. The main impression I received from transport users was the inferior quality of the product and of the service to keep it on the road. Had there been time for more questions I should like to have asked how many transport managers present purchased their vehicles at the correct fleet user's discount_ And how many, I wonder, were prepared to pay for quality that they wish to be built into their vehicles—high-grade steel in brake drums, brake warning devices, and so on.
In my experience the fleets who buy their vehicles at the right price, from reputable distributors, have the highest record of performance and the lowest record of breakdowns. It will be a long time before some transport managers realize that a service costs money.
Croydon, Surrey. D. W. DOVE,
Director, L. F. Dove (C.V.) Ltd.
A Unique Opportunity
TOUR journal's Fleet Management Conference was a great success and 1 am sure that you have set a standard which will be difficult to achieve year after year.
I do hope, however, that you continue to hold these conferences, because the healthy discussion on all the papers must have convinced the manufacturers that they have a long way to go before a satisfactory vehicle is produced. At the same time, it was a most unique opportunity for operators to meet on neutral soil.
London, E.C.4. LAURENCE J. COTTON,
Transport Division, Unilever Ltd.
[We had very many letters of congratulations; our thanks for them all.—En.}
• Dock Delay—a Solution?
IT will be well known to your readers that the serious road congestion and delays to vehicles at the docks and wharves in London, which is at present being highly publicized, has been with us for a very long time and is progressively becoming worse.
With the object of overcoming this situation, four years ago we acquired a wharf on the Lee Navigation adjacent to the locks at Ponders End,' where we have just completed the building of a second shed, 105 ft. by 60 ft. Both sheds are served by fork-lift trucks and a fixed crane of 5-ton capacity can reach both sheds as well as barges alongside the wharf. Lifts of up to two tons can be delivered into craft.
Being situated just off the North Circular and Al0 roads we consider these premises to be ideally suited to deal with road-borne cargo for export which would otherwise proceed direct to the congestion of the dock areas.
B22 It has always been our contention that with the elimination of wharfage and porterage charges by goods being delivered to the export vessel by barge, and the resultant saving of demurrage charges, the difference in costs incurred by utilizing this method is minimal.
This seems to us to be the ideal situation where the shipper and his haulier should get together to study the overall costings from ex-factory to f.o.b. vessel. Surely it would be better for the haulier to pare his rates slightly, if necessary, in view of the shortening of his running time and lessening of detention, and so have his vehicles available more readily, rather than having to continually apply to his customers for demurrage charges.
London, E.C.3. I. G. CLARK,
Director, John Good and Sons (London) Ltd.
The Swing to Cummins
I WAS extremely interested in and sympathize with the
comments made by Mr. Painting in his letter regarding the swing to Cummins engines, evident in recent manufacturers. announcements (The Conunercial Motor, September 18). With your leave I would like to add comment of my own in order to ventilate this subject more thoroughly.
Dealing first with the smaller VAL and VALE units, it must be fully appreciated that performance apart, the eventual large scale use of these engines will be seen to have a strong political flavour, bearing in mind the large U.S. stake in our vehicle industry. American-controlled firms strongly favour the use of U.S. originated units where possible for a variety of reasons, including frequent superiority of designs for quantity production. The comment will no doubt apply to other running units as the U.S. invasion gets under way. In fairness, however, it must be emphasized that Cummins have produced very impressive data based on extended road test programmes. They claim to have achieved decisive superiority over the nearest British competitor in respect of time-load-mileage factors.
Turning now to the factor question of power units for maximum road vehicles, the situation is rather different. Manufactui ers in this country who do not " own " an engine are extremely restricted in the choice of a unit acceptable to the domestic market. The narrow choice is between fitting a Gardner and joining the " gang " or buying an engine from the Leyland-A.E.C. group and risk the commercial dangers inherent in dealing with a competitor. Maudslay found this to their cost some 15 years ago.
Ignoring for one moment the merits or otherwise of the Cummins products, they offer an escape from the dilemma outlined above. The Vee unit undoubtedly constitutes an attractive package to the manufacturer wishing to eliminate the central engine cover from his forwardcontrol cab. On balance it is extremely doubtful if the larger Cummins units are equal to the best British designs, although this is not to denigrate the compactness and rigidity of the Vee unit. I sympathize with Mr. Painting's misgivings, but Cummins were ready with an attractive range of developed power units backed by powerful sales promotion at the right psychological moment. To increase their share of the vehicle export market, the smaller manufacturers desperately need an alternative to the ultra conservative Gardner product—which may be acceptable to a percentage of the domestic market, but finds little favour abroad.
We must content ourselves with the thought that it is better to export trucks with American designed engines than not to export trucks with British engines. Finally; I subrnit that the Gardner concern could have done much to forestall this situation by pursuing a more enlightened and progressive policy. To my knowledge, the Gardner organization has doggedly refused to permit more realistic ratings for its products. Faced with 150 h.p. and 1,700 r.p.m. from the latest Gardner unit one can hardly blame the vehicle manufacturer who refuses to wait another 10 or so years before this concern condescends to uprate the unit.
Redditch, Worcs. PATRIOT.
Not So Philanthropic!
WE were very interested in the letter from Mr. R. Sharpies of Europa Express headed "Philanthropic?" (page 108 of your September 11 issue) in which he queried the cost quoted for our recent series of international demonstration runs with the Thames Trader artic outfit These represented the extra cost of operating a vehicle on international work and did not include ordinary per-mile operating costs.
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What Mr. Sharpies may have overlooked in querying the ferry charges is that these runs were specifically a Clicence exercise and involved the use of a smaller vehicle than is usual on Continental A-licence work. This involved making the return journeys without a load and we were therefore able to take advantage of the lower rate which Transport Ferry Service charges for unladen vehicles. The laden rate is 6s. 4d. per sq. ft_ and unladen is 4s. 4d. per sq. ft. For our vehicle, totalling 255 sq. ft., this would give a total of out-and-back ferry charge of £136.
The detailed costs for a typical North European return trip over and above ordinary per-mile operating cost would be as follows:—
For the British Aircraft Corporation run to Toulouse, we used the service provided between Southampton and Cherbourg by Thoresen Ferry. They calculate their rates oil the basis of 38s. per ft length laden, and 25s. 44 unladen, and with our 34 ft. vehicle this would give a total round trip ferry charge of £107 13s. 4d. For a journey into France, under similar conditions to the journey into Northern Europe itemized above, the final total cost would come out at about £133.
ALAN 1-1._GARDNER,
Manager. Press & Information Ford of Britain.