SIX FIDUCIAS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1937, Page 10

SIX FIDUCIAS

NEW TRAMCARS

PROBLEM OF DESIGN

LENGTH AND WIDTH

The first fully-enclosed tram car in Wellington, the "Fiducia," was built about four years ago, largely as an experiment, and, because the new type was so radically different from what had become the accepted standard, the change was warmly argued, as highly praised by some as it was thoroughly condemned by others. The four years' experience with the closed type has confirmed official opinion .that it has definite advantages over the combination car and six more of the Fiducia style are being built at the Kilbirnie workshops, with probably more to follow to build up the tramway rolling stock by the Exhibition year. '<

The new cars will not be copies of the first closed model, for various improvements and minor alterations have been suggested by the experience of operation, but generally the lines and seating 'will be much the same. COMFORT AND LOADING. Certain* basic requirements have to be taken into account in the design of trams, and high up on the .list are the comfort of passengers and the speed with which cars can be loaded and unloaded or individual passengers' can board or leave a car at a' city stop. , A closed car is more comfortable than an open car, providing that ventilation is satisfactory, but the closed car may not unload so rapidly and conveniently. A few years ago, when the central seating of standard cars was normally open, loading was rapid, but in- bad weather wet and flapping curtains were drawn down and only the two narrow end openings could be used. The curtains were thoroughly unsatisfactory: they did not keep bad weather out, the cracks between up-1 rights and fabric let in perishing draughts, and so, ■at some loss of loading convenience, the greater part of the central- section was permanently closed. Nobody wants to go back to rattling , curtains. The fully; enclosed car with doorways at either end was the next'logical step, and it is an open question- whether loading is any slower in fact, whatever the theory may be.; ; .They are certainly more .comfortable 'to ride in when the weather is bad; passengers, face in the direction they are going; they need not stare at, or be stared at, •by others on the opposite seats in the cabins; and when the car is full and someone leaves in a hurry feet are not trodden on and knees brushed with wet coats or bumped with bags. A tramcar, which has to stand up to very .hard usage; can never be built to give sedan car comfort, but it has to get as near as it can, and to the degree ; that is reasonably possible the newer cars follow motor seating and arrangement. " , LOCAL RESTRICTION ON DESIGN. • The Fiducias are riot the perfect car, and that is admitted at once by the tramway people, but Wellington conditions impose most difficult restrictions upon' design, and Mr. H. Leah, the rolling stock superintendent, has spent a good many years worrying out a design that will best fit those cramping restrictions. :■'.''' The main difficulties are, first, the narrow track gauge, secbndly, the narrow space between tracks in doubleline streets, and thirdly, the sharp bends on several 1 of the routes. Those factors combine'to limit the width of the car (three seats wide in Wellington as compared with four in most other centres), and the overajl length of cars, lor if another foot was added there would be danger of "brushing" (not so gently either) at bends such as from Manners Street to Cuba Street. The restriction upon width and length restrict the passenger-carrying capacity, but another serious difficulty is added in that there is less room under the flooring for* the arrangement of motors, brake gear, and air compressors, and the rest of the elaborate equipment and controls which make a tramcar go and make a tramcar stop. 'An immediate remedy would be to lift the flooring higher, but the whole aim is to keep the step heights low. The floor cannot be lifted, and to save an inch or so radical alterations have been made in the main members of the new cars, by cutting out a flange here and adding welded reinforcement as compensation there. The cabling which carries power between the controls and the motor is rearranged and instead of being carried under the floor, is taken along between the car walls—another inch sayed. TOO STUFFY, TOO DRAUGHTY. ' The new cars will be criticised as have all modelf^they will be, according to the point of view of the liver, too stuffy, too draughty, too slow to get out of, there's no place to spit (and that is a fact), and so on. But they will represent a lot of hard designing thought and work. What the tramway designers would ' really like is a brand-new tramway lay-out, with a wider gauge,' wider separation between tracks, no sharp bends, in fact, a complete rearrangement of city streets and widths, for the street widths are at the bottom of the whole problem of tramcar design. As they cannot get new conditions. they "carry on under awkward restrictions, fully aware that the new cars will be criticised by people who do not know what the difficulties are. .