PASSENGER BUSES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23177, 25 October 1938, Page 5

PASSENGER BUSES

USE IN MELBOURNE EXPERIMENT T.O BE MADE CHAIRMAN'S INVESTIGATIONS [ir'llOJl OUft OWN" CORRESPONDENT] MELBOURNE, Oct. 17 A transport experiment of considerable interest is about to be made in Melbourne. Although plans had been advanced for replacing the old cable trams along Bourke Street, City, to the suburbs of Clifton Hill and Northcota by electric trams, the Tramways Board has decided instead to experiment with buses. This course had been urged by Bourke Street traders, but hitherto the board had not been impressed by the arguments in favour of buses. Crude oil buses will replace trams on tho routes to Clifton Hill and Northcote, and a new bus service to North Kew will bo introduced as soon as the board can obtain tho necessary buses. The Colliiigwood cable line will be closed. This action was decided upon by the board, on the recommendation of the chairman, Mr. H: H. .~Bell, following his investigations of transport abroad. Probably 72 busC3 will be required. Impressed by Crude Oil Buses The board also accepted a recommendation by Mr. Bell that it should place an order in the United States for the purchase of one "Presidents' Conference" type of tramcar. iThis car impressed Mr. Bell by its silence in operation. Reporting to the board, Mr. Bell said:—"l left Melbourne in March last with a perfectly open mind on. street transport. After the secretary, Mr. R. Spencer, and 1 reached England, and as we went about examining system after system, wo got the feeling gradually that perhaps it would be advisable to come to sooie modification of our electrification policy."

Mr. Bell said that it was outside London, in such cities as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, where huge housing schemes were being developed, that he began to bo impressed by the crude oil bus. "The crude oil bus'" said Mr. Bell, "is u tremendous advance from the economic point of view oil the petrol vehicle, and has in Britain, as with us hero in Melbourne, made possible R3rviccs which would otherwise have been impossible, except at a particularly heavy loss. "The growth in the use of this particular bus can be illustrated by mentioning that during the two years ended June 30 the number of crude oil passenger buses operated by municipal transport departments in Britain advanced from 2586 to 5121, whereas during the same period the number of petrol buses declined from 4407 to 3337. "It has to be remembered also that really startling developments are occurring with buses which can operate cither with ordinary town gas as the fuel or which produce gas as they run."

Mr. Bell told the board that trams had been superseded in many of the smaller cities of Great Britain arid the United States by petrol, crude oil and trolley buses, and the general feeling among transport experts was that trams should be retained only for trunk lines with a heavy density of traffic.