Automatic Washer For Transport Board Buses

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27500, 6 November 1954, Page 9

Automatic Washer For Transport Board Buses

The motorist who spends a good part of the week-end in washing and polishing his car would class as Utopian an automatic machine which has just been installed by the Christchurch Transport Board. Cleaning the outside of a car by hand may take up to an hour, but the Transport Board’s buses, with three or four times the body area, can now be done in five to seven minutes each, including the time taken in lining up for treatment and driving oft. The actual .washing is done in 55 seconds. The principal of overhead and side sprays is familiar in commercial garages where the overhead gear moves back and forth with the same jets applying in turn water, cleanser and rinse. The British automatic washing machine, installed by the Transport Board at a Cost of £4OOO, carries out these operations in series as the bus moves through. It also has the big asset of brushing. The apparatus is the first of its kind for buses in New Zealand. As a bus enters the arches of jets it trips an overhead switch which brings into play the clear-water sprays of the pre-rinse to clear loose dirt while the front is hand-cleaned with a long-handled broom incorporating a pressure hose with trigger control. Whirling Brushes i Two sets of sprays then apply detergent at high pressure as the bus passes slowly between the whirling brushes, which resemble giant rolling pins about two feet in diameter. The vertical ones brushing the bus sides

are about 11 feet high and the one for the roof almost Ss wide. The soft Mexican fibre bristles are arranged in sections to conform to the contours of the bus and steady pressure is applied by counter-balancing weights. The bus then passes through a clearwater rinse and the rear panel is cleaned by hand. There are dozens of nozzles in the whole machine, applying a fine mist to the body and hard jets at wheel level. Practically all the water used is recirculated. The 800-gallon tank, which delivers detergent solution at the rate of 15 to 20 gallons a minute, is replenished as the mixture drains back off the buses. The only slight wastage occurs in the pre-rinse. The upper bodywork is almost dry at the finish and the combined action of detergent and brushes has already given a fair gloss to t buseu so far treated. Monthly Change of Solution An intriguing aspect is that the detergent, mixed at the rate of half a gallon to 800 of water, will provide a solution expected to last about a month without changing. The Christchurch Transport Board has 165 buses and more replacements have been ordered. All of them will be cleaned daily by this machine five or six times faster than by the old method of hoses, mops, wash leathers, arid polishing clothes used by hand. The innovation caused considerable interest among other transport and cleaning operators when it was first demonstrated yesterday morning.