MEETING PASSENGER NEEDS BY BUSES ALONE.
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A Service which has Always Been Provided by Motors since it was Established in 1907 in a District which has No Tramways.
MI ASTBOURNE claims to be the pioneer in the adoption
A A r of municipal motorbus services. Todmorden was, how
er, the second municipality to acquire buses, the first motor omnibus running in the town in 1907. The town turned down proposals to run tramway services in 1906, and subsequently, when railless traction was considered, it was still decided to adhere to motorbuses. The borough lies one half in Yorkshire and one half in Lancashire, and occupies what is virtually a strategic position at the junction cf several roads over the Pennines, over which runs probably the heaviest volume of traffic between the two counties. Cramped between high hills, it is natural that the town should have marrow streets and tortuous highways, arranged to avoid natural obstructions rather than for easing traffic difficulties. The narrow streets and sharp corners ruled out as a practical proposition the tramway proposals of nearly 20 years ago, although the very nature of the country, with houses and factories spread along the bottoms of the valleys, -meant that some kind of passenger transport was necessary.
There are no fewer than six railway stations in the borough of Tolmorden, but, in spite of this competition, Todmordou Corporation omnibus service is to-day in a position which raust.be the envy of many similar concerns. The judgment of the "city fathers" of Todmorden of 18 years ago, when they decided to purchase petrol buseg, was then considered to be a wise one, and the events of the last few years, when so many tramway undertakings have found very difficult conditions a great bar to progress, have more than confirmed the adherence which Todmorden has shown for this form of transport. When faced with competition from private undertakings, the municipal system has undoubtedly held its own, and, at the present time, even in spite of a private undertaking endeavouring to encourage custom by carrying passengers free of charge in the borough (as was the ease some months ago), the municipal undertaking is not now opposed by any concern.
The Todmorden fleet of vehicles, which is under the direction of Mr. James Wild, the engineer and manager, comprises 25 Leyland vehicles, of which six are single-deekers and the remainder double-deck vehicles, with a seating capacity vary• ing from 30 to 52 passengers. A remarkable feature of the services is the linking up of towns of considerable size, the routes at present in service being :—Todmorden to Burnley, 9 miles ; Todmorden to Hebden Bridge, 4i miles; Hebden Bridge to Oxenhope, 7 miles • Todraorden to Summit, 4 miles; Todmorden to Bacup, 5; miles; and Bacup to Townley, 7 miles. In most instances through services pass directly across the town, hut in one instance it is possible to take a triangular route of four hours' continuous running without change of bus. The route mileage is 36 or 37 miles, and the average monthly mileage is practically 50,000. This mileage is run at a cost, on the latest figures, of 13.414. per bus-mile, a figure which includes all charges. This is remarkably low, particularly in view of the fact that all the buses run with two men, a driver and -a conductor, no juvenile labour being employed.
Asked by a representative of The Commercial Motor how he explained the very low figures, Mr. Wild said he put it down to running a standard fleet, the maintenance of a wellequipped garage, the employment of experienced men in the garage and as drivers, and, perTiaps most important of all, the incidence of a very low overhead charge. Mr. Wild explained that they purchased the buses out of revenue. Annual charges would be increased before long because they were building a new garage, but the motorbus committee believed in purchasing out of revenue. The oldest bus they had in service was six years old.
Mr. Wild believes in scrapping the old ones, because maintenance costs get so high that they do not warrant running the vehicles. By the time the buses were six years old they Lad been depreciated to the full, and in those circumstances they could afford to let them go cheaply. All repairs, coachbuilding and painting are done in the garage, but, thauks to the efficiency of the Leyland' spares service, stocks of spares could be kept very low, and there was little dead money in this department., Petrol consumption runs high in this hilly district, and "averages a gallon for only 5.53 miles. Every vehicle is checked separately, but the heavy going to which the vehicles are subjected is instanced in the case of the route to Bacilli, which in 3i miles rises from 500 ft. above sea-level to 1,302 ft., an average rise of approximately 1 in 17, with places at which the gradients are 1 in 9. The tamp and Townley route has many right-angled bends, and this also affectiz petrol consumption.
Regular inspection is made of all the vehicles, and, so far as possible, men are kept on one particular job in the repair department, and drivers are not allowed to do any repairs, the instructions being that if anything happens they must go to, the nearest telephone and ask for the repair car to be brought out. In this way the lost service has been reduced to less than one-sixth of a mile per thousand run.
On the point of using 'small vehicles when the passengers are few, Mr. Wild said he did not consider the running of small buses worth considering. The difference in the running costs, when comparing small vehicles and large ones, was infinitesimal, whilst the earning power of a larger vehicle at busy times was double that of a small one. He expressed the opinion that it was more economical to run a • service less frequently with a big vehicle, which would carry bigger loads at• busy times, than to 'run a frequent service with small buses when passengers are few.
They at Todmorden were out to give a good, useful service at the lowest possible cost, and with as little interchange as possible 'between town and town. They had been welcomed in all the towns they had sought to include in their _services and, as the town-to-town services were becoming snore popular, they were considering running a cross-town service in order to relieve congestion as between the through passengers and the local passengers. As an instance of the flexibility of the .motorbus, service is provided by the concentration of up to a dozen buses in the centre of Todmorden about 10 o'clock each evening to deal with the passengers who desired to get home from various places of amusement. .It took some time for people to become accustomed to the _new facilities when new bus services were put down, said Mr. Wild, .but, when once a service became kniown, its use .commenced to grow rapidly and there was an increased desire for better facilities on the part of the public.
. On .the relative merits of tramcars, buses and trolleyvehicles, Mr. Wild had some interesting remarks. • With regard to buses acting as feeders to tramway services, Mr. . Wild said he thought it was unfair to expect people to change vehicles for a journey of a mile or a mile and a half, and a • through service with one vehicle was much to be preferred. The fact that they nad buses and no trains in Todmorden had meant .that they had been able to extend their services very widely without the heavy capital expenditure which would have been necessary in the case of laying tramways. "I happen to have been manager of a railless traction service for seven years," said Mr. Wild, "and whilst there is an advantage in rural districts with railless cars over the tramway car, they lack the full advantages of the motorbus. At the most—and then only when running very slowly—can _they obtain 15-ft. lateral movement. .They cannot carry any more passengers and they cannot make the average journey any faster than the motorbus. The motorbus has, of course, the outstanding advantage of being able to go anywhere. ;
Costs depend very largely upon the district, but the-difference in cost is very small, although it is probably slightly to the advantage of the railless car. What advantage they gain there, however, is absorbed by the higher cost of the vehicles and the maintenance of the overhead. In conclusion, Mr. Wild expressed the opinion that with the present-day cost of laying down tramway services there was little possibility . of new routes anywhere being opened out, and as tracks came to be worn out there would be a gradual reduction in tramway services all over, the country as they were suPerseded by other forms of transport. The railless would find fa-vour snore especially in the case of municipalities which produced their own electricity and sold it to the transport undertaking.