From Our Berlin Correspondent.
Page 15
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Types of Berlin Universal Store Vans.
Two rival proprietors of universal stores in Berlin, Messrs. A. and W. Wertheim, vie with each other in their self-propelled rolling stock-. They use various makes and systems, and I send illustrations of types supplied by the Marienfelde branch of the Daimler Motoren-Cesellsehaft. NV. Wertheim owns both petrol and electric vans turned out from the Daimler works. The petrol vans are mounted on MiInes-Daimler two-ton chassis with cardan drive, and a four-cylinder engine of some 22 h.p. A. Wertheim's two-ton Marienfelde has a really handsome and artistic body, the lettering. rails, handles and all other metal mountings being of polished brass. W. Wertheim's electrically-propelled van has a grey-painted body devoid ot metallic ornamentation, and embodies the Lohner-Porsche system of electric propulsion. The motors are of 7 h.p. each and drive the back wheels. The battery, which lies under the bonnet, gives a radius of action approximating 50 miles, on level roads. With the chief characteristics of the latest Marienfelde earclan chassis many at your readers are donbtless familiar.
In a recent issue of the Temple Press's youngest weekly, " Motor Cycling," a brief reference was made to a fleet of electrically-propelled tricycles in the transport service of Herr Wolff Wertheim. These smart vehicles, five in number, were built by Siemens and Schuckert, by whose courtesy I am enabled to send you a "snap" of a 'Wertheim tricyclist in the saddle. [This is reproduced on page 388.—En.] From an independent source I learn that the tricycles are giving entire satisfaction. The main-current motor, fed from a battery accessibly suspended between the elliptical front springs on which the goods-box rests, is capable of driving such a machine at a speed of 10 miles an hour with a full load; the comparatively-low speed was chosen deliberately for the purpose of increasing the working safety of the vehicles and the goods which they con vey. One charge is sufficient for a run of some 56 kilometres, which is quite enough for general, metropolitan work; hence, if charged in the morning, the battery lasts through the whole day's work.
Fares According to Corporal Height.
In common usage, traffic managers take age as the factor for determining whether children shall travel at special fares or not ; one might safely say that, under this system, many a juvenile well beyond the standard of age, but possessing a diminutive stature as well as relatives quite prepared to swear to anything calculated to reduce the expenses of travelling, has been passed through the barrier at half-fare. This tendency to" do " traffic companies, together with restricted accommodation in the motorbuses working the Bavarian motorpost lines, may account for the recent notification by the Bavarian Traffic Ministry that, henceforth, "no special fare will be taken in the ease of a child not exceeding one metre (3 ft. 3 in.) in height, provided it travels on the lap of an adult." Who shall measure the children, or how they shall be measured, the Ministry neglect to state. Will the length be fixed, roughly, by the conductor's eye " Or must this functionary use a footrule? And does the metre include boot-soles with socks, or socks only? One may, however, assume that children need not remove their boots when submitting to a hypothetical foot-rule or tape measurement. Will there be inspectors of measures to check conductors, with possible fines for short measurements? Yet perhaps the best standard would be weight. A weighing-machine could form part of the motorbus's interior equipment, children under a certain weight travelling at a lower tariff. I offer this soggestion to the Bavarian Ministry as an alternative scheme, in case there should he difficulties in carrying out the new regulation.