OPINIONS FROM OTHERS.
Page 25
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
The Editor invites correspondence on all subjects connected with the use of commercial vzotors. Letters shouta tre on one side of the paper only and typewritten by preference. The right of abbreviation is reserved, and no responsibility for views expressed is accepted.
Coping with Manchester's Traffic Problem.
The Editor, THE COMMERCIAL Meama.
[2237] Sir,—I have been greatly iiaterested.by the striking article in the issue of The Commercial Motor for January 22nd, 1924, descriptive of the involved transport gambits incidental to the different areas predominated by the textile industry.
! It is, however, something more than interesting—it is vital to a national activity—to seek the outstanding inference to be drawn from the, facts thus authoritatively marshalled.
'The appalling congestion engendered within the Manchester alleys and by-lanes by the conflicting objectives of industrial and public-service transport ; the complication of mingled slow, medium and fast traffic-velocities, exemplified in -horse-flats, motar lorries and tramcar; the fixed foci of loading and
• delivery throughout an area in which the industry is rooted—all these constitute a problem of the first magnitude. If such .be thc case at a time of unparalleled depression, what will they become when trade improves?
May I suggest that the crux lies in the discovery and adoption of what may be termed "the critical unit of flow "—the transport-unit, in other words, which will provide the maximum fluidity, both as to ease of mam:euvre and closeness of approximation to the average traffic-speed permissible or possible.
venture on this with some diffidence because I know that I shall, in part, traverse The Commercial Motor's. championship of the six-wheeler, and—worse —traverse it with an apparent retrogression! I advocate a general recourse to—Lhorse7haulage But, let me add, horse-haulage with a difference.
• Itis an acknowledged fact that the efficiency of motor traction is impaired by any excision of its attribute of speed. The streets of London shout this aloud day by day. Broadly, mechanical transport economy is a function of speed. Where speed is— from whatever cause—reduced or rendered fitful below a certain average, the virtue of power vehicles is rendered meaningless.
The linear, dimensions of city streets govern traffic flow no: less inevitably than pipe dimensions limit fluid flow, so that experimental determination of a "critical unit "—under the -riding conditions of the former—becomes, in my opinion, vital to the problem as it confronts us to-day. Manchester, by your correspondent's own showing, is already -on the track of her solution. An organization (hestates) has established outside the city a depot in which loads brought thither by high-speed: .motor haulage are transferred. to horse -vehicles for the final inter-Urban stage of distributidn and
delivery. . .
It was precisely to meet such a case and purposd. as.this that the H.I.C. transport truck was designed as a unit of alternative draught. Convertible in three minutes front a traiIer-vehicle to be towed at the highest permitted speeds of. petrol le* and steam wagon to a vehicle -especially designed ,to. relieve heart-strain in horse haulage, the 1-1,I.C. truck enables the haulier. to "make the best of both worlds "—or, rather, both systems of transport, with equal efficiency and .economy in both.
Between marshalling depot of coHection and marshalling depot of delivery the. unit is run as theroad equivalent of the railway goods truck in " express goods " service behind the " locomotive"
• of the motor lorry. Arrived at the destined depot, it is detached and—with no costly interval for break of bulk for transhipment to another vehicle—with
pole and whipple-tree substituted for towing triangle (a three-minute operation), it is almost instantly ready to continue its journey behind that first and surest of all 'shunting engines," the sturdy carthorse.
'Thus, in an aggregate load of some 6 tons to 9 tens., the loss of time and money tin handling for transfer is cut in half and, when road-train haulage comes (as come it must), the economy will be greater in direet proportion to the number of these appropriately designed units run in steady tracking train, automatically free from side-swing and overrunning of the tractor unit.
1 do not for a moment say that no mechanical substitute will later be forthcoming for the horse,
hope it will. What calls for emphasis is the fact 'that, to render traffic not merely cheap but actually possible-under the conditions described, there are not wanting instruments by means of which one at. least of the many and heavy disabilities.under which our greatest northern industry is labouring may he resolved by purely. British endeavour and purely British means.--Yours faithfully,
P.p. HAULAGE IMPROVEMESTS AND CONSTRUCTIONS, LTD.,
E. J. WEELDON, Director.
Mixing Water with Petrol.
The Editor, THE COMITERCIAL MOTOR.
(22381 Sir,—In edition of Tire Commercial Motor dated January 8th . there is • an article headed "Mixing Water with Petrol," which I have read with interest, and can confirm from experience that the aadition of water vapoiir in the ordinary explosive mixture does produce a very marked improvement.
It is quite unnecessary, however, to go to all the trouble of producing colloidal fuels, and I do not agree that the injection of Water or steam into the induction pipe ""` necessitates "additional and undesirable complications.." I have an excellent apparatus-fitted to my vehicle—the Gazolcx water carburetter—which automatically supplies just the right amount-iof water vapour, or steam, and mixes it with the ingoing petrol vapour.
It can he fitted to any engine in a few minutes without altering anything ; there is nothing to get out of order, and one has only to fill the water tank (supplied with the apparatus) from time to time.
I find the Gazolcx absolutely pvevents the !usual carbon deposits and thus eliminates "knocking." At the same time, the power of the engine is increased, the " pick up " is better, and there is a saving offrom 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. in the petrol consumption. I notice, also, that the.engine runs "slightly -cooler.
Certainly, with the apparatus fitted as standard, the :-compression ratio of lorry engines could be raised and, for this reason, I think there most be a great future before a simple and effective apparatus like the Gazolex.—Yours faithfully, josEP.0 G. BECKETT. South Hampstead.