The representative., 1901-06-13
MOTORS FOR HEAVY HAULING
Not Much Has Been Accomplished Of .
Practical Kind.

The progress Of events in the history oi
heavy traction on common roads by power,
Is little instructive. The advances made
are slow, out of all proportion to the antici-
patfons formed q few years ago when parlia-
ment sanctioned the use Of self-propelled
vehicles on our highways under conditions
accepted with exultation at the time. Dur
ing all this period individuals, more or less
enthusiastic. have been, we may charitably
hold learning facts which have been brought
home to them, sometimes very rudely, and
seldom or never, we fear, pleasantly. with
an important bearing on the present and fu-
ture use of motor vans. The nrst OF these
was the discovery that enormously more
than was anticipated. The old style Of
reasoning was that q real horsepower was
22,000 fOot-pOunds per minute, and a van
load for good horse was III tons, in
cluding the cart. One Indicated horse-p pow
er being $4,000 feet per minute. or 80 per
cent more than live horsepower, one
mechanical horsepower ought to be enough
to haul 80 cwt. 1t was not found out until
various trials and disappointments had done
their work that q mechanical horse power is
In practice equivalent to about one-ffth Of
q flesh-and- blood and nervous energy horse
power. Today few persons Of experience
would provide less than 10 indicated horse
power to do the work readily accomplished
by two draught horses. The second lesson
learned was that everything had to be made
much stronger, and, therefore, more heavy
than was at first deemed necessary. To all
intents and purposes the motor-van makers
are repeating the experiences Of the trac-
tion-engfne makers. The result of all this
Is not unnatural demand for such changes
in legislation as will permit much stronger
and heavier vans to be used than are now
permissible. II such legislation takes place,
1t appears to US that we shall have trao-
tion engines running about the roads in
disguise. Indeed, Taylor, OF Birkenhead,
many years ago, made. II we are not mis-
taken, very useful big steam lorry, which
differed but little in appearance from GER
tain modern vans. An advertisement con-
corning a Chaplin lorry has appeared in
our pages, and those who are interested
and care to see an illustration Of the ma
chine will find 1t in the advertisement pages
of the Engineer, about 1857. The essential
difference in principle between the modern
motor van and the traction engine is that
the load is carried on the same wheels as
the mechanism in the former, whereas the
latter hauls it's load In wagons behind it.
: The. reason why horses are more effective
than machinery for hauling purposes, al
though a very interesting subject for dis
cussion, need not be discussed now. 1t Is
sufficient for our purpose to know that a
great deal Of power is required to enable a
van to do useful work. Nor Is it necessary
to be produced, whether by steam or by
some kind of internal explosive engine
The prime fact with which engineers have to
deal is that the success or failure OF any
design mainly depends on the nature of the
road on which the van is to be worked. The
V slides of planning machine are intergral
parts of the whole. The permanent way Of
railroad and the rolling stock constitute
together one complete machine. In just the
same way the kings highway must be re-
garded as an integral part of all and every
combination of mechanical appliances by
which transport is effected on the road. In
one word, II we attempt to dissever the road
from the van, we shall fail to accomplish
anything. Two or three years ago the maker
of steam van told us that he was surprised
to find how little power was required to
work his van. He had been running it on
wood paved Streets. A week or two later on
he was very much more surprised to find
that on fairly good macadam after rain he
could do next to nothing with the same van.
In preparing the designs for any van, the
quality of the roads must not for q moment
DO forgotten, and 1t will not do to estimate
the character Of the road by anything but
its worst bits. A length of few yards of
soft sandy bottom on an otherwise good
road will certainly bring a van which may.
have been doing well to grief. Curiously
vious circumstance constantly overlooked.
This is not all, however. A road may be
level, hard, and Of little resistance to trac-
tion, and yet be very destructive to mechan-
ism. This type of road is rough and
'.knobby;;" it will shake a vehicle to pieces,
and the mischief done by such roads aug
ments in most painfully rapid ratio with
the pace Of the vehicle. Earring and tremor
are as effectual as direct violence In injur-
ing mechanism. Scores of examples Of this
might be cited. One will suffice In a
motor van a long horizontal rod was used
to couple the, steering gear to the leading
wheels. The rod was broken solely by vi
bration. 1t was replaced by a much heavier
and stronger bar. That was broken in much
the same way, and finally guides had to be
fitted to steady the rod and prevent 1t shak-
ing. The benefits to be derived from India
rubber tires cannot be overestimated. But,
unfortunately, they are only to be obtained
at an almost prohibitive price.
Very earnest and well-directed efforts
have been made to establish services of mo-
such service may be cheaper and more
convenient than railway work. We cannot
believe that his will be found possible, save
under very peculiar circumstances. Some
years ago firm of colliery owners fell out
with a railway company. and wished to es-
tablish traction engine service which
would haul 10000 tons Of coal per annum
distance Of about four miles. 1t was pointed
out to the firm that the first result would be
to cut the road to pieces, and SO bring the
haulage work to an end. The scheme fell
through, but the facts are instructive. The
point in all such enterprises to be carefully
kept in mind is that 1t Is proposed to make
the road carry an unwonted traffic. Indeed,
1t Is specially claimed that by the motor
van people that they will be able to utilize
such highways, for example, as between
Liverpool and Manchester in a way that
they have never been utilized before. The
essence of the scheme is that whereas such
ho~
tons a month, let us say, it will now bear
a traffic of 1000 tons week. Now, be it
observed, that this traffic has to be carried
on wheels, no matter what the means of
propulsion may be, and that at the best OF
times the wear and tear of the road must.
four fold under the new regime, so far as
wheel damage is concerned 1t is urged that
the wheels of the van will not be as de-
structive as the feet Of horses. This we
may admit, but only for the Aake of argu-
ment. The fact remains that the road will
require much more repairing under very
heavy mOtOr-van traffic than by comparison
1t would require under lighthouse traffic.
The cost of repairs will fall on the rate
payers, and they will very quickly make
their voices heard to some purpose. But
even with this aspect of the case we need
not trouble ourselves. motorvan service
begins with an excellent road. The road
gets out OF repair; SO as a consequence will
the vans Every borough engineer knows
that "cobbling'' road is a most expensive
and unsatisfactory way of repairing it. So
the road is allowed to get pretty bad. Then
1t is all picked up and re-made. But such
road does not recover its surface for some
time, greatly to the disadvantage of the
motor In other words, II the au-
thorites do not keep the road in repair, the
motor vans cannot be worked at all; and II
they do keep it in repair, the very process
OF repair will be found prejudicial
So far as past experience goes, recent and
ancient it appears that under