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TRANSPORT PROBLEMS DF A BIG CONTRACTOR
Page 116
Page 117
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Much of the Transport Work of J. Mowlem and Co., Ltd., has to be Carried Out Under Exceptionally Difficult Conditions and Requires Vehicles Adapted for Particular Purposes THE transport work carried out by J. Mowlem and Co., Ltd., 91 Ebury Bridge Road, London, S.W.1, is extraordinarily varied in its nature by virtue of the difficulties which have to be overcome. The actual size of the fleet is not great, the object being to maintain all specialized vehicles and to hire others close to the site of the work as and when they are required.
Many lorries have to work over fields and through clay, in fact, the operations often resemble war-time transport conditions, requiring the use of sixwheelers with twin-tyred bogies (described as 10-wheelers by the cornpan,), and even track-laying machines. The men, however, are not carried in lorries, except from one part of a job to another; they are mostly engaged close to the various sites.
Constitution of the Fleet.
The fleet is • mainly composed of Thornyerofts, Fordsons, Morris-Commercials and Altrions, with a Latil and an International tractor, and Peerless chain-driven solid-tyred lorries for conveying mobile compressors.
Now vehicles from the yard quickly carry the portable compressors to the points where they are required, the machines being loaded and unloaded by means of ramps and winches. The latest vehicles used for this work are converted Fordsons of 7-tons capacity, with drop frames and special bodies, and Unipower bogies to give gear ratios as low as 63 to I, or 2.5 m.p.h. at 2,000 r.p.m. A machine of this type has actually carried a 7-ton excavator to Bognor and the type is proving re
markably efficient. At one time, such. an appliance would have been moved
at 4 m.p.h. on solid tyres, now it can be carried at the maximum speed of a pneumatic-tyred heavy vehicle.
. For conveying big machines of weights up to .24 tons, an International tractor with heavily weighted wheels GAS
is used, in conjunction with a drag. Another special vehicle is a Scammell 6-ton mechanical horse connected to a low-built two-wheeled trailer of the same make, The mechanical engineer of the company, Lt.-Com. J. Havers, M.I.T.A., A.M.I.Mech.E., M.I.E.C., has had no light task in finding suitable equipment for the transport which he has to provide. For example, in connection with the six-wheelers used for the general transport of ballast, etc., the War Department design necessitated narrow chassis frames and, . as most of the underneath of the body was occupied
by the drive, it was impossible to fit side-tipping gear. With end-tippers another difficulty is that the drivers are apt to " bump " the vehicle in reverse, in order to shift the wet materials, thus damaging the transmission. The solution of the problem has proved to be the moving floor, and the company was one of the first to utilize the neat and efficient Transport device.
An excavator bucket will drop into the vehicle body half a yard of wet material at a time, and at first some trouble was experienced with bending at the centre of the steel slats of the moving floor. This has been overcome by replacing the single cross-type slats by others made in halves, butted together and with an extra stout longitudinal support member, which takes much of the shock. The floors now prove efficacious in every respect.
The old method of carrying the materials, was to lay down narrowgauge rails and employ tipping skips, but this involved constant moving of the rails as the dumps were filled, and the moving-floor vehicles have greatly expedited the work.
In levelling a site, a Unipower-Fordson with a Transport floor recently' .,loaded, shifted and discharged 1,788 yards of material (about 2,000 tons) in a week of 50 hours. This means an average of approximately one yard picked up on soft ground, conveyed arid put down where required every
minute. .4
The old pattern W.D. Subsidy-type single-tyred Thornycroft six-wheelers
' are able to work in• very bad weather on rough ground by using removable tracks, as supplied to the War Office, but on many sites concrete roads are built as the work proceeds and, if such tracks are used on these roads, much damage is done, whilst to remove and relit the tracks as required became very expensive. An alternative was to employ supplementary vehicles on the concrete roads, but it was found with the above-mentioned Fordsons that the twin-tyred rear wheels a,nd powerful V8 engines give an enormous grip, and RO thcsmachines can travel across fields to collect plant or to serve excavations, whilst no damage results when they operate on concrete roads.
. Tackling, the Lighter. Loads.
For fast, Short journeys with light loads,the Morris-Commercial 30-cwt, vehicles have proved excellent, but to avoid Wastage of load capacity S for lighter work, a number Of,Morris-Cow.:
Thy and Morris-Oxford cars was con. vated, the dickeys being cut away and
light lorry bodies fitted.' These can carry up to 10 cwt. and prove particularly useful for carrying ,light emergency gear, such as Oxygen and acetylene in cylinders. Loads up to 8 cwt. are -conveyed in two Fleet three
, wheelers.
• Some time ago, the company re quired 5-ton low-loading lorries and, for this purpose, purchased some second-hand Thornycroftcoaches with worm drive. These were overhauled and converted and, during three years of operation, have given little trouble despite achieving a large mileage.
One interesting vehicle is a MorrisCommercial War-Office-type 30-cwt. six-whiaeler, with twin tyres at the rear, which is used as a runabout on fields and roads ID carry engineers and light loads.
There is also a:fleet of private cars, the engineers at the head office and on some jobs having cars at their disposal, which are also used for emergency inspection work in connection with accidents, burst pipes, etc.
As regards maintenance, practically everything, except reboring, is done in the company's, own works, which has complete tool equipment, including cylindrical and surface grinders. Spare units are kept as required, so that de lay is reauced to a minimum. In the case of the Ford and Fordson vehicles, however, the engines are changed under the special Ford scheme, this work being done daring the night.
Tyres are very seldom scrapped because of tread wear, damage being mostly to the walls and caused by rails and other metal on the sites.
In supplying Vehicles to the various departments, a cost per hour is allocated to each. Every vehicle has a speedometer and many are equipped with Servis recorders. Most careful records are kept of everything done to each vehicle, with the dates, fitter's order number, etc.
Track is kept of every vehicle by means of a large blackboard, chalked into divisions, and with hooks for numbered discs. Every vehicle is identified as to type. For instance, E.T.P.S. means end-tip power-operated, steel body; other letters are B. for bolster and W. for wood.
For running-in engines, Duckham's tablets are employed. Laystall alloy liners are used for brake drums, and no wear on these can be discerned,
One would think that the work of maintaining such a fleet would be ample for most men, but to Mr. Havers this is only one branch of his work, as he is also responsible for the maintenance and repair of excavators, concrete mixers, compressors, pumps and a multitude of other forms of equipment and
tools,