PART PLAYED by ROAD MOT S in 7,000-TON PEA HARVEST
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
A Haulage Operation, Simi in its Outline but Complex its Details, Carried Out a Way Which May Ser as a Model in Simil,
Circumstances BY
S.T.R.
A.GRICULTURISTS are continually increasing their use of road transport. Indeed, many recent innovations in farming have only been made possible because mechanical road transport has been available to assist. Our industry is thus doing its share in fostering the modernization of agriculture. On the other hand, these agricultural needs are producing some complex and difficult problems for solution by the road-transport operator.
Here is one, brought to my notice by. Mr. P. L. Dicker, of .G,ammarr.,and . Dicker, Ltd. I will state it in -general, terms, so as to eliminate therisk of . divulging anything of aconfidential nature.
'An, agricultural product of a kind,
nat. the • time described, which woud involve the employMent of from 12 to 20 5-6-tonners fora period of not less than six weeks or more than eight weeks, during niidsiimmer—that was the subject: Noempleryinent fur that considerable number of vehicles was offered for the remaining weeks of the' year.' This is iniportant, bearing in mind the severe restrictions oii terinage which are imposed uprin our industry.
Progressive Demand for Vehicles.
Actually, the full number of vehicles was not required in the beginning. The harvest started slowly, and in the first fortnight four vehicles sufficed; towards the end, 16 vehicles were hardly•sufftcient to do the work.
'When the nature of the task was fully disclosed, it became immediately apparent that this first problem was the
easiest. of the many involved. The work was the collection of the pea harvest, over an area of approximately 2,000 square miles, from 45 farms scattered throughout that area, and the
B36
'delivery of this harVeit to a.centfal point, which Was a. caning factory. The farm nearest_the factory was threequarters of a mile away, and the most distant 40 miles away.
Each farmer bad contracted.to put. .a specific acreage 'under, this crop. The area varied conSiderablv.from a minimum, of four acres to.a maiiinum of 32 acres per farm. The tonnage per acre, apart from exceptional cases, was from fiye,to eight. The range: of expectation of.C.rop was, therefore, from 20 tons 'to 250 Ions per farm. . The: total -was likely to be 7,000-tons, or thereabouts. So much for the collection of the crop..
Now turn to the delivery end—the factory. The peas are delivered as they come from the mower, -that is to say, as a full pia& or vine, not just the pods. These are fed to machines called viners. There. are seven of them, and the total capacity is eight tons per hour. So far as is possible this rate of feed must be maintained. Work is started at 5 a.m. and, iii a full day, continues until 11.30 p.m. for six days per week.
The load is delivered to the viners, subject, however, to a proviso, which is apt to complicate matters: at least it is a factor which must be reckoned with in planning the haulage. The proviso is that crops from different farmers must not be mixed, that is to say, any load from a particular farmer must be cleared, and passed through the viners before the harvest of another farm is dealt with.
The reason for this is that records have to be taken of the relative value of each farmer's products, this being measured by the proportion of actual peas to the tonnage of vines. It would he impossible to take such records if the farmers' products were mixed.
Transporting the Straw.
The straw from the viners has to be taken away as quickly as it is made. It is conveyed from the viners to a delivery point raised some 12 ft. or 14 ft, .from the ground, from which it issues in a constant stream throughout the day. The lorries are backed under thisdelivery point, and one of the minor problems of haulage is to ensure that there is always a lorry available to catch the straw so that it does not fall upon the ground and have to be forked up again.
It is now possible to envisage, in outline at any rate, the problem which faced Mr. Dicker when he came into possession of these essential details of operation A crop totalling 7,000 tons to be collected from 95 widely scattered farms, to be brought in at an even rate of eight tons per hour with no mixing of the crop. The haulage had to be done by drivers strange to the country and without a vestige of knowledge of the routes to the various farms—and how difficult it is, at the best of times, to locate a farmstead.
Provision had to be made for a working day of l84. hours, without risk of contravening the law regarding drivers' hours, and yet without unnecessary expenditure on spare drivers. The straw, coming from the vinerS, must be carted back to farms as fast as it is made, as it must not be left on the ground: A limited quantity of crop to be left overnight, sufficient only to enable the viners to start work immediately the following morning, but none to be so left on Saturdays. Other complications were to arise as the work proceeded, but the foregoing is the problem as it was initially investigated.
The first steps, like the acquisition of the vehicles, were fairly obvious; to purchase an ordnance map of the district, to mark out the position of
the farms and then to discover the best route to each from the factory. This involved personal investigation of the whole area. Each farm was numbered and a board carrying the number was put in a conspicuous position by the side of the road quite close to the farm.
A schedule was then drawn up giving the number of the farm, the name of the farmer, the distance from the factory, the acreage to be cropped and detailed instructions for reaching each farm. The last item of information, with the farmer's name and the number of the farm, were extracted from the schedule and typed out on cards—one for each farm. The appropriate card was handed to each driver, together with his instruction note when he set out on a journey.
Each day's work was carefully planned ahead, in conjunction with the field men from the factory, who controlled the farmers in that they advised them when it was convenient for the factory to handle the crop. In effect, they told the farmer when he could cut his crop, assuming that weather conditions and the state of the crop were favourable. Naturally, in exercising that control, the field men would take into consideration the state of the crop. Absolute control of the haulage was, however, held by Gammen and Dicker, Ltd, In planning the day's work, provision had to be made to ensure the even flow of crop co the viners.
The first driver continues to collect loads, but ceases before his 11 hours are completed. Other drivers start work later in the day and, consequently, finish later, and in that way it .was found possible to operate the 12 vehicles over the 181-hour day with only one spare driver.
At 3 p.m. each day and at 10 a.m. on Saturdays the exact position is noted and any modification to the day's scheme is effected at once. The scheme, as originally planned, worked to perfection, except for one complication which could not have been foreseen. Certain farmers, whose original intention was to pick the crop and deliver the peas in their pods to the factory, were unable to do so because of a shortage of labour. They, therefore, arranged to cart their crop to the factory and this, at times, meant some little dislocation, This disturbing element was almost the only factor which had to be taken into account, on most days, when the 3 p.minvestigation was made.
Now a word about the vehicles. As has been stated, 12 were found to be sufficient for most of the time and all of them were taken from a fleet normally used only on sugar-beet haulage. Those who saw the illustrations accompanying my articles on this subject, will recognize the type, but will be inclined to marvel at the comparatively well-kept appearance of the machines used in this particular work. Mr. Dicker insisted that every one of them should be put into first-class order, externally as well as internally, before he accepted them for this commission.
A mechanic was permanently employed at the factory to deal with any repairs which arose. A superintendent, this mechanic, the spare driver, who also acted as shunt driver in the yard, together with a boy and a loader, completed the organization needed to ensure satisfactory and continuous operation.
I have dealt with this job of haulage at length and in some detail, because I think it is a model of organization, having in mind the peculiarities of the work, its difficulty and its complexity.