Detachable Loads—Lancashire Flats.
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SINCE WRITING our short editorial article on page 26 of our last issue, in which we pointed out that, whether Mr. Gattie's very. comprehensive Clearing House scheme for goods is practicable as a whole, he nevertheless had furnished us all with a very useful reminder of the utility of the removable-body system, we have revived our knowledge .of the extent to which this method has for a long while past been used, particularly in connection with the Lancashire cotton trade.
For many years past commercial-vehicle owners in the County Palatine have had wagons in busy employment fitted with detachable flat platform bodies— Lancashire flats they are commonly called. The principle was a common one long before motor vehicles were accepted as practical alternatives to horsed haulage. And, to this day in Manchester and .Liverpool streets' and in neighbouring towns, of course, both horsed and motor vehicles are to be seen regularly eaerying loaded flats, while other easily detachable platform bodies are being loaded or unloaded at warehouses or dockside.
The principle is an economical one where heavy loads of small units have to be carried in bulk from point to point. Its advantages largely disappear when the complete loads consist of two or three heavier .units only, or again to a certain extent in cases where the load has to be broken up or added to en route. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the detachable platform or "fiat" embodies a method for which considerable extension might usefully be sought. Mr. Gattie's scheane, now at last so prominently before the public has, at any rate, focussed attention upon the advantages the system. Yet another ex ample of its application is the recognized one of using separate coal hoppers Or boxes which are attached individually to a railway wagon or a motor chassis. An example of the latter was busily engaged in the Royal Show ground at Cardiff last June, and was The subject of much favourable and interested comment.
Slough Must Go.
NOW THAT, at last, the nation' thoroughly exasperated, has shown itself fully determined to insist upon a very drastic reduction of public expenditure, including even the demobilization of the Waacs, Wrens, Wrafs and all the others (whose wartime services were quite useful no doubt, but without whom, in our previous peace-time, we managed quite nicely, thank you), it will not surprise us if, quite apart from all the talk arising from the Prime Minis. ter's injunctions, the next few weeks do not bring quite sensational evidence of the manner in which the Government departments 'have really begun to feel the breeze raised by the public and the Press in this matter of expenditure. Mr. Lovat Fraser, in the Daily Mail, declared that those in charge of Slough have very astutely dressed the window facing the G.W.R. by crowding every available motor vehicle up into full view of the passengers on that railway—presumably as evidence as to how very busy they are there and how necessary this huge concern really is. We shall not be very much surprised if we were to learn that, after all, Slough is to be demobbed or the equivalent, after suitable explanations of the new idea have been tendered. Quite a lot of Government officials have become very tired of Slough—and are none too keen to have their names associated with it any longer!