Motor bus

“ Some of these cars are almost luxuriously fitted with fine cushions and special lighting. They have speaking tubes or electrical devices to signal the driver. The drivers for the large companies wear the livery of the company. Taxis, as may be inferred, have no established routes, but go wherever the passenger may desire.
The motor-bus is well established both in city and cross-country traffic. As at first made motor-buses consisted of special bodies with seats placed upon freight truck chassis. ”

“ So the motor buses are crowded, while the horsed rivals on the same route trundle along half empty. Since the one class of vehicles can travel at an average pace of ten miles an hour, as against the four miles an hour of the other, no wonder that this should be so. Even if the running costs of a motor bus for a given distance exceed that of an electric tram, we must remember that, whereas a bus runs on already existing roads, an immense amount of capital must be sunk in laying the track for the tram, and the interest on this sum has to be added to the total running costs. ”

“ Out of the dark interior of the motor-bus, as we passed it, there groped a head with a grey slouch hat. It came slowly round on its long, brown, wrinkled neck until it looked into our car. "Hey, mate," it said, "is this the track to the races?" Then it smiled at the landscape in general and withdrew into the [Pg 58] interior like a snail into its shell. In this bus was an Australian Brass Band.
We drew up where there was a collection of motor-cars, lorries, and odd riding horses along the roadside, exactly as you might see at the picnic races. ”

“ Motor Bus Traffic. —Suburban and interurban motor bus passenger service is growing rapidly. Buses accommodating as high as sixty persons are being used on the haul where the roads are well paved, but twenty to thirty seems more popular. At present these buses seem to be well patronized, usually bringing their passengers to the larger city in time for business or shopping and returning them home in the afternoon or evening. The rates of fare for bus travel are about the same as those for steam car travel, or approximately 4 c. per mile. ”

“ It met the competition of the gasolene locomotive upon the highroad, how? By cutting its all-the-year train service to two trains a day and gradually raising its fare to five cents a mile. People who have to go from one end of its main line to the other, about 110 miles, are still likely to patronize it. The motor-bus is hardly more effective in the long haul than is the motor-truck. And in the really bleak days of winter its snug little passenger-cars, well lighted and warmed, have more appeal than the poorly lighted and heated motor-buses that traverse the State highway. ”

“ The trolley car is able to haul large numbers at a less expense. In such cases no passenger transportation is cheaper. But the field for the auto bus is wide and no doubt it will come more and more into competition with the street car and steam railroad lines. The former, whose single and primary business is transporting passengers, are already complaining bitterly of the inroads made upon their business by the privately owned automobile and motor bus. The automobile is the larger factor because there are more automobiles than buses. ”

“ On the basis of the average number of persons actually travelling in a motor-bus at one time, it would probably require 4000 motor-bus journeys to bring even the Great Eastern suburban passengers to town each day if they discarded train for bus, and the same number to take them back in the evening. ”

“ No less than thirty road services are in operation, and their number is being steadily augmented. In fact, it looks as if in the near future the motor service will largely supplant the branch railway, blessed with very few trains a day. A motor bus service plying every half-hour between a town and the nearest important main-line station would be more valuable to the inhabitants than half a dozen [145] trains a day, especially if the passenger vehicles were supplemented by lorries for the carriage of luggage and heavy goods. ”

“ The perfect motor-omnibus, and, for that matter, the perfect ’bus of any kind, has yet to arise, and is suggestive of Darwinism in the length of time required for its evolution. But can London and the long-suffering traveller wait ten million years or so—putting up meanwhile with the inconvenience of existing vehicles—until the omnibus companies wake up, or are superseded by more enterprising business adventurers? ”

“ Solution
11. RIVALS ON THE ROAD
Six horse buses and four motor buses travel each hour from Temple Bar to the Bank. The horses take 15 minutes, and the motors 10 minutes on the journey.
If I come to Temple Bar, and wish to reach the Bank as soon as possible, shall I take the first horse bus that turns up, or wait for a motor? It must be assumed that I can only see a bus as it actually passes me. ”

“ There is a large sphere open to the motor bus outside districts where the electric tram would enter into serious competition with it. We have before us a sketch-map of the Great Western Railway, one of the most enterprising systems with regard to its use of motors to feed its rails. ”

“ Cross-country motor service has proven quite feasible and scores of buses now leave every large city for the surrounding smaller towns. The bus seems to negotiate a 50-mile trip very easily at a speed of approximately 20 miles per hour including stops. These buses or stages carry from 12 to 20 passengers and are operated by one man; they are well sprung and equipped with pneumatic tires. For country traffic seats cross ways of the car are much more comfortable to the rider than lengthwise seats. ”

“ We understand the inhabitants have resolved to leave well alone.
At a meeting of the Four Wheeler's Association, a speaker boasted, with some justification, that a charge which is brought every day against drivers of motor-cars has never been brought against members of their Association, namely, that of driving at an excessive speed.
Rumour is again busy with the promised appearance of a motor-bus which is to be so quiet that you will not know that there is one on the road until you have been run over.
[Pg 187]
An Unpardonable Mistake.—Short-sighted Old Lady. ”

“ Owing to the greater speed of the motors, however, the passenger accommodation provided by, say, half a dozen such cars would be greater than that of a similar number of omnibuses, for the service would be more frequent. Not much increase of speed can be hoped for in congested areas, but outside these the motor should be able to run half as fast again as the horsed ’bus.
There exists, however, no reason why a still more improved and refined omnibus service should not be started, electricity alone being adopted, instead of steam, petrol, or a combination. ”

“ A 10 horse-power engine is not sufficiently powerful to drive a fully-laden ’bus up a hill at any reasonable pace, but there are many places where a ’bus will run by its own weight, and needs no engine. The new car is provided with accumulators.{211} When little or no power is required by the motor, the current is switched on to the accumulators, so as to store up a reserve for hill-climbing. ”

“ In town, if one keeps in the ordinary line of traffic, and proceeds at the same pace as the other vehicles, the result should be perfect safety, for one can always stop as quickly as the ordinary 'bus in London, even under the worst conditions. ”

“ Wherever the roads are dependable and passable at all seasons of the year truck and bus lines have sprung up to ply regularly between the towns. The length of haul most profitable seems to be that over which the motor can make the round trip each day and have sufficient time at terminals for loading and unloading. Forty to 50 miles for trucks and 60 to 65 miles for buses seem to be negotiable and double these distances are proving to be practicable. ”

“ The back and front are fixed vertically upright, the latter immediately behind the driver's seat. Inside the body on the wooden platform are mounted a lathe, drilling machine, tool-grinding machine, also fitter's bench and vices, together with the accompanying small hand tools. A petrol engine direct coupled to a dynamo drives the lathe, drilling machine, etc. Such, briefly, is the arrangement of the standard mechanical transport mobile workshops. Our Workshops Officer, however, was not satisfied and sought to improve upon it. ”

“ The mud of the trenches in winter has become proverbial, but it is not confined to them: it exists on the roads behind the line as well. It must be seen to be believed! Take any good main country road, that for years has been used merely by a few farmers' carts and periodically perhaps by a small amount of motor-car traffic; suddenly start running over it several hundred heavily loaded motor-lorries, ambulances, general service wagons drawn by teams of four horses, not to mention sundry motor-cars, motor-bicycles, and several batteries of artillery ”

“ The net result of such well-equipped workshops is that during the whole time that the column has been in France it has not been found necessary to return a single vehicle to the Base Depot for replacement. Every repair has been carried out "in the field" by the column workshops. The non-evacuation of a single lorry is a record held by the —— Indian Cavalry Division Supply Column, and the fact is the more remarkable since over half of the lorries are, as I have previously stated, ex-London General buses. ”

“ In addition to the workshop lorries, O.C. Workshops has a two-wheeled "trailer" of his own design and construction, which when the column is on the move is coupled up to one of the workshop lorries and towed by the latter. It is designed to carry two spare engines complete. When stationary, it acts as a fitting, erecting, and engine-testing bench, and on it all lorry engines are overhauled and refitted as occasion requires. On the trailer is fixed a crane, which enables the engine that is to be overhauled to be lifted direct from its lorry chassis and placed on the trailer. ”

“ Tram cars often ran along the middle of the street, with barely room for a vehicle to pass on either side. The huge motor busses came tearing towards us in a manner most trying to novices, and it seemed, time after time, that the dexterity of the drivers of these big machines was all that saved our car from being wrecked. We obtained only the merest glimpse of Hampton Palace, and the time which we had consumed made it apparent that if we expected to reach our hotel that night, we must immediately retrace our way through the wild confusion we had just passed. ”

“ The motor 'buses go very much faster than the old horse 'buses, and as they carry, also, many more people, altogether, as we have seen, they do more work in the way of conveyance altogether.
You can go a long way in an omnibus for a few pence, but taxi-cabs are much more expensive; they are also very comfortable—no stopping and waiting for other people then. You are carried swiftly and smoothly to your destination, unless you are held up by the traffic ”

“ The motor-busses are covered and very comfortable, and to the individual who is entertained by strange faces and gay chatter about all that is going on in the country through which he is traveling, the motor [171] diligence is a delightful entertainment. In fact, if the traveler is bent on studying the country and its people, he will do so much more advantageously in the public conveyance than in the isolation of the private car. However, if he is only on holiday or a pleasure trip the motor is recommended, and it is with the idea of traveling thus that this imaginary journey will be taken. ”

“ We sat in the white wicker chairs on the terrasse of the café and watched the motor-buses come in and unload peasants from the country coming in to the market, and we watched the buses fill up and start out with peasants sitting with their saddle-bags full of the things they had bought in the town. The tall gray motor-buses were the only life of the square except for the pigeons and the man with a hose who sprinkled the gravelled square and watered the streets. ”

“ French, British, and Indian Cavalry Divisions were "going through." On the 14th we packed up and were on the move again and bivouacked for the night on the roadside just short of ——, which was our railhead the following day. A sudden move is no light matter! More fortunate than other branches of the Service in the matter of carrying capacity, A.S.C. motor-lorries, when loaded up to their utmost capacity with rations and forage, do not offer as much accommodation for the carrying of kits and mess gear, though, as might at first sight appear. ”

“ The workshop artificers are all specially enlisted and skilled workmen at their particular jobs, and with the tools and appliances at their disposal, there is no job that they would not be prepared to tackle. One of the difficulties of mechanical transport vehicles and motor-cars has been the question of road "springs." ”

“ Consequently, the difficulties of working in convoy at short intervals were accentuated. All the motor transport was concentrated on one side, and the armies dependent upon it were kept well supplied daily with fresh meat, the opposing forces being dependent on horsed transport and chilled meat. Motor buses were on one or two occasions during the manœuvres utilised with great success for the rapid movement of fairly large bodies of men. ”