COAL GAS

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 August 1932, Page 8

COAL GAS

NEW FUEL FOR LORRIES. Following on, the new coal-oil fuel experiments carried out by the Cunard Lino in conjunction with the Wallsend Slipway and Engineering Co., Ltd., another important industrial experiment with fuel, in which the firm of Vickers, Armstrong’s, Ltd., of Elswick, are playing a leading part, has been taken in hand.

z Vickers Armstrong’s are now manufacturing' at Elswick, Newcastlc-on-Tyne, steel gas containers of a special type for use on lorries and vehicles, which it ib claimed will run entirely on ordinary coal-gas, dispensing with the use of petrol. This, it is said, will effect an economy on petrol fuel costs of between thirty and forty pei’ cent., and so provide a further stimulus to the coal trade.

Outlining the project recently, Commander E. R. Micklen, R.N., of Vickers Armstrong’s, Elswick, observed that for some time the firm had been manufacturing high tensile alloy steel bottles suitable for the storage of gas at high pressures—approximately up to 3,000 lbs, per square inch 1 . “The compressed coal- gas containers,” ho said, “are fixed under the lorry and connected straight through to the engine cylinders. Recent experiments have proved that under certain conditions ordinary coal-gas can be used foi* running heavy motor vehicles with a definite advantage, as compared with petrol.”