Nairn Transport

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 13, 30 July 1945, Page 3

Nairn Transport

A KORERO Interveiw

Gerald and Norman Nairn were well known in Blenheim, where their

father, Dr. Nairn, was in practice for many years. In the days when communications throughout the district were primitive, Dr. Nairn earned the gratitude of many a sick person by his willingness to turn out in all weathers over roads bad or non-existent. Before the last war the two Nairn brothers were in partnership in a motor-cycle business in Blenheim. Norman Nairn, who was in England, enlisted after the outbreak of war, and Cxerald went away with the 10th Canterbury Regiment. The brothers later met in Palestine. They were there when hostilities ended, and decided to stay in Palestine in business. They received financial backing from a Syrian, and formed the Nassar-Nairn Co. At that time it was possible to buy Army transport—Fords for the most part—do up the vehicles, and sell them again at a large profit. Fords could be bought from Army stocks for £SO to £6O, and resold on the civilian market in Palestine and Egypt for between £SOO and £6OO. The business however, was not quite as Elysian as it appeared. The company lost money. It was plain that prospects in the motor business in Palestine were becoming progressively less rosy.

The brothers next became interested in transport services, and the Nairn Transport Co. was formed. The company operated a freight and passenger service on the route between Beirut—Haifa ;

£B,OOO was put up by a backer, who charged 15 per cent interest on the loan. Norman Nairn went to America to buy suitable cars, and returned with “steamers.” The steam car was even then a fine vehicle, and had many advantages over the petrol-driven car. It was unfortunate that these were outweighed by disadvantages that soon became painfully evident. In many places there was no road at all between Haifa and Beirut, and the Nairns had to improvise a route. Near Acre the cars had to travel along the beach, making a straight dash when the waves receded, and swerving madly up the beach when an especially large one threatened to overwhelm the car. On inland stretches the road was often desert country, and the car would career wildly over the rocks and boulders which formed the surface. The early steam car had one serious failing. When driven hard it used to run its boiler dry. The Nairns’ steam cars were no exception, and in time acquired a reputation. As a result, when the driver received warning of trouble from a sheet of flame from under the bonnet it was unnecessary to warn the passengers. They had already taken to the desert and were speeding to a safe distance in small clouds of dust.

As the roads improved, the company met with increasing competition on the route. This, and the trouble with their cars, decided the Nairns to strike out in a new direction. The steam cars were sold to Palestinian Jews with the company’s

best wishes, and plans were made for the opening of a regular service across the desert from Damascus to Baghdad. This service seemed to the Nairns to be particularly tempting. The general opinion was that the scheme as impracticable. The engines could not stand the heat and dust. The load of petrol, oil, water, and food to be carried was too great. The going was too rough and the tires would not stand up to it. The Bedouin, the Druse, and other interested tribes would hold up and rob the cars, and probably shoot the passengers. And in any case, the drivers would certainly get lost en route.

It was therefore, to the accompaniment of much wagging of heads that the Nairns made their first experimental DamascusBaghdad journey in April, 1923. They carried on the car 80 gallons of petrol, as well as oil, water, food, and camping equipment. Navigation was principally by compass, as there were then no tracks. Traces that might have been left by a camel caravan, for instance, would be quickly obscured by wind and weather. The trip of 2| days was uneventful. After the first trip further tests were made, and’it was found possible to operate in even the hottest weather.

A regular Damascus-Baghdad service was most important. The large European staff of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. was isolated. Mail, freight, and passengers had to travel via the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, two of the most trying stretches of water in the world. If a service made it possible to travel overland from Baghdad to the Mediterranean, there would be a great saving in time and expense. It is interesting that when the Nairn Transport Co. began to carry mail, the mail time from the Persian Gulf to Britain was cut from about five weeks to ten days. The company received a Post Office subsidy of Is. 6d. a pound on mail, which seems scarcely adequate. The British Embassy in Baghdad were asked for support and encouragement. The Embassy, however, considered that the service was not practicable and would give no assistance. The first cars used were Buick tourers, followed later by Cadillacs. There were instances in early days of cars being held up by

Bedouin raiders, the cars looted and the passengers left with little more than their socks. In some cases the car would also be stolen. This would be followed a week or two later by something particularly infuriating : the company’s service would again be interfered with by a band of raiders using one of the firm’s own cars.

To check these losses the Nairns engaged Mohammed Bassam. Bassam was a leader of camel convoys along the same route and was well known to the local sheikhs. Not only did he provide a camel driver as guide for each ca?, but he also acted as liaison officer between Nairn Transport and the local chiefs. The liaison, of course, took the wellknown form of judiciously distributed largesse. The average Arab is extremely lazy, and when offered the chance of making money by doing nothing at all he will gladly co-operate. All that Mohammed Bassam asked of the chiefs was that they should stop, and order their men to stop, molesting the company’s cars. This scheme was first tried in October, 1923, but was not kept up for long. The raiders no longer held up cars, but the immunity cost the company £2,000 a year. And the camel driver guides were a complete failure. Although able to direct a slow moving camel, the faster cars upset them completely and they seemed to lose all sense of direction, wandering miles from the route. The services of Mohammed Bassam and his henchmen were dispensed with, therefore, and reliable compasses were installed in the cars. These proved satisfactory, nor did raiding parties again in normal times seriously interfere with the company’s service.

There was one .unpleasant incident during the Druse rebellion in 1925. A small convoy carrying a consignment of gold for one of the banks was ambushed 80 miles from Damascus. The gold was stolen and a British driver killed. A pursuit was organized at once, and three of the robbers . were chased until their camels dropped or were shot. The three men were captured and publicly hanged in Damascus. Robbing from the Nairn Transport Co. was seen to be undignified and unprofitable.

By now, continued traffic over the Baghdad-Damascus desert route was beginning to mark a well-defined track, so that even compasses were no longer essential. Traffic was increasing, and the Nairns extended their service to the Mediterranean coast at Haifa. A coastal service was also run, linking Homs and Tripoli with Haifa, and turning inland to Jerusalem. Most of the Nairn’s cars by this time were Cadillacs and larger than the original Buicks. Increased traffic, however, made it essential to obtain buses. The first models used were of the sixwheeled twin-axle type. These were used on the desert run only, as their size made them unsuitable for the coastal route.

The two great difficulties of desert travel are dust and heat. An ordinary

winding glass window is useless against the finer desert dust, which will find its way through the smallest crevice. Nor is the average bus, however well ventilated, calculated to remain habitable in temperatures of 120 degrees and more. To overcome these difficulties, Norman Nairn travelled to the United States and placed the order for the first two of the monster coaches which have since made the Nairn Transport standard of comfort famous all over the world. The coaches were mounted on a Marmon-Harrington chassis which had eighteen wheels. The total weight of each vehicle was 26 tons, and each was designed to carry 40 to 45 passengers, and reasonable luggage. The coaches were of Pullman design, built of stainless steel. The interiors were air-conditioned and fully dustproof, and

were cool in summer and warm in winter. Meals were served on board, and a wellstocked bar was kept (during this war a wider variety of excellent liquor was to be found on the Nairn buses than in any hotel in the Middle East). These vast vehicles were at the time, and probably still are, the finest of the kind in the world. They run on Diesel fuel, and complete the journey of about 550 miles from Damascus to Baghdad at an average speed of 30 miles per hour, which means a speed of 55 m.p.h. wherever conditions permit. At present the two Pullman coaches are still going well, and each has covered about 800,000 miles. This is 250,000 miles more than was thought possible. Before this war the French Government in Syria and the Lebanon was quick to realize the value of Nairn Transport to those countries, and were most helpful. Not only did they pay the company a small annual subsidy, but also permitted the duty-free importation of spare parts and equipment for the firm- a valuable concession.

Tires have always been the firm’s greatest running problem. The route is said to be the hardest in the world for tire wear. Five rubber companies have sent men to study the problem on the spot. With the costliest' make of heavy-duty tire the best mileage ever obtained was 16,000 miles. Synthetic rubber during the war reduced the average life of a tire to about 2,000 miles. At present the Nairns have a priority call on genuine rubber tires from South Africa, and this has improved the position.

Naim Transport has not always had a monopoly of the Baghdad-Damascus traffic. Eight or ten firms have in the past started in competition. Gerald Nairn estimated that about £200,000 had been lost in this way. The most serious threat came from a British firm, who started with fine equipment and a large staff in a determined effort to oust Nairn Transport from its position. The Nairns put themselves and their staff on half-pay and declared war. Nineteen months later they took over the assets of the rival company. Much of the Nairns’ success is undoubtedly because both brothers have a thorough first-hand knowledge of every phase of their business. For example,

Gerald Nairn drove one of the cars for seven years, put in further time in the workshops, and also knows the administrative side of the business thoroughly. This is also true of the other brother, Norman. The Nairns can therefore quickly pick any administrative weakness and can take measures to strengthen it.

Although dust and heat are generally supposed to be the principal irritants in desert travel, mud and water are even more objectionable. Contrary to popular belief, much of the Damascus-Baghdad route becomes a sea of mud in wet weather. The flooded Tigris was also formidable in the days when the only way of crossing was by an unsubstantial pontoon bridge. The bridge was certainly dangerous for heavy traffic, as the weight of a large vehicle allowed water to flow into the pontoons and threatened to sink the bridge. At times it was necessary to disembark the passengers, send the bus over empty, and have the passengers follow on foot. It is also true that, in exceptionally bad weather and with the river Tigris in high flood, passengers have been seasick when crossing the bridge. There was an incident in the early days of Nairn Transport when the pontoon bridge was carried away with the cars on it. The cars were tipped into the river, and the drjvers, of whom Gerald Nairn was one, had to swim nearly half a mile to shore. In spite of such difficulties, the Nairns claim that in the whole history of the company they have never lost a mail. They have now been carrying mail for more than twenty years, so that their record is remarkable. They have also in the past carried the diplomatic bags for the British, American, German, French, and Italian representatives.

When the French Government in Syria threw in its lot with Vichy, Nairn Transport was told to go. It locked up its buildings and went. Here the company might well have come to an unpleasant end. The Germans were aware of the quality of much of the transport plying between Syria and Iraq. Had they not been so severely handled in Crete, there is little doubt that German troops would quickly have appeared in Iraq and Syria. To take over all available transport, a German representative was flown to Syria at this

time. The plane was mistakenly fired on shortly before landing. Little damage was done and the plane made a normal landing. Only then was it found that the German representative was dead in his seat with an accidental bullet through the heart. But for this the Nairns would have lost all their equipment. As it was, when they returned to Damascus after the occupation of Syria they found that their buildings and machinery were intact. Two of the small cars had been used by the French for a few days, but had been returned to the garage and the place relocked. The Nairn brothers can therefore say with some truth that one bullet saved their business.

The Iraqi rebellion also caused an interruption to the service. Much equipment was stolen. Also, before closing down, there were cases of cars and drivers being stripped of everything by the insurgents. Even the seats of the cars were ripped open in case they were carrying hidden gold. Gerald Nairn became O.C. the guard of twenty-four men at the gates of the British Embassy in Baghdad. In case of serious trouble the chances of this guard’s survival were regarded as so slim that they were dubbed “ The Suicide Squad.” The trouble never became bad enough to test the accuracy of this surmise.

For the last two or three years, Nairn Transport has been principally engaged in carrying Army traffic, with a priority given to officials and their families of the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. Many of those people have been marooned through the war in isolated places on the Persian Gulf, and are now being given the opportunity to take leave in England or elsewhere. At the same time, their reliefs are being carried in the opposite direction.

About 42,000 passengers a year are at present being carried on Army business. Vehicle maintenance is a problem. Two Pullman coaches are assigned to the civil and Anglo-Persian oil traffic, while the other buses used for Army passengers are repaired and built up from bits and pieces taken from old buses. Many of the bodies have been made in the company’s own workshops. The Nairn brothers are about to alter their service considerably. They intend to purchase in the United States

smaller buses with a greatly increased cruising speed. With these they will cut the time of the. journey from eighteen hours to thirteen hours. This will be sufficiently fast to compete fairly favourably with the air lines, five or six of which provide services from Baghdad.

During the war the Army has built a tar-sealed road from Haifa to Baghdad, which has made road travel much easier. Nairn Transport uses a triangular route, as their transport travels from Haifa south-east to Jerusalem, inland to Amman, and from there north and east till the main Damascus-Baghdad road is reached about 265 miles from Baghdad. Oh the outward journey the buses run direct to Damascus and then to the coast at Haifa.

The Nairns well realize that the days of a profitable road transport service over so long a route are nearly numbered. Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the Lebanon have their national airways, competing over the same territory. Gerald Nairn has had his own plane for many years and does most of his travelling by air. Air transport competition is at present so fierce that the Nairns consider it sound policy to keep out of that particular war for a time. They are therefore about to begin their new service of small fast buses, to run until the airlines have cut each other’s throats. It may well be that once again Nairn Transport will be able to step in and take over the assets. >

ON BREAKING HABITS

To begin knocking off the habit in the evening, then the afternoon as well and, finally the morning too is better than to begin cutting it off in the morning and then go on to the afternoon and evening. I speak from experience as regards smoking and can say that when one comes to within an hour or two of smoke-time one begins to be impatient for it, whereas there will be no impatience after the time for knocking off has been confirmed as a habit. —Samuel Butler.