Re: so go ahead and sue me
IS Edit
Sunday, February 24, 2002 9:38 PM
Because the English are anal
retentive.
The London Metropolitan Police controlled
dimensions and they were very restrictive on length and width, and static
rollover threshold (they put all the double deckers on a tilt table to test
them). Anyone that wanted to build for the London market had to meet those
dimensions.
The restrictions led to the double-decker design to
get more people into a tight envelope.
The length restrictions also meant a bonnet was an
extravagant waste of space. The answer was to move the driver from behind the
engine up next to it. That didn't leave much space for the driver so the engine
was offset to the left to leave him a bit more room. And the hot side
was away from him (exhaust manifold, injectors, fuel pump and most other bits
that required maintenance. Hence the need for mirror image bus and engine for
Left Hand Drive countries.
Also, of course, almost all early engines were
vertical engines so you couldn't put them under the floor or down the
back.
The English never did really pull their shit
together with underfloor engines. They were considerably more expensive to
operate than front, vertical engine designs.
In fact I have an article around here somewhere
from an astute senior Engineer who worked in several transport undertakings in
the UK and kept meticulous records on running costs.
He came to the conclusion, when he wrote the
article after retirement, that vertical front engine buses were so cheap to run
compared with rear and underfloor engine models that the undertakings he worked
for would have been better off keeping the half cab design and conductors,
rather than switching to newer designs and OMO.
RT Murphy
----- Original Message -----From: Herman R. SilbigerSent: Monday, February 25, 2002 3:59 AMSubject: Re: [TramsDownUnder] so go ahead and sue meCould somebody explain to me why the UK started building the half-cab?
What was the advantage of that? Half cabs were only found in the UK and
ex members of the British Empire afaik.
> WALTER Bennett wrote:
>
> Its a bus
> Built by NEW PLYMOUTH TRAMWAYS
> OPS 1 1947-48
> To a WELLINGTON design.
>
> I just knew ISEdit and the taximan would like to see
>
> WGB
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