Pegasus : $b problems of transportation — John Shaqi
Pegasus : $b problems of transportationFuller, J. F. C. (John Frederick Charles)
History
Pegasus : $b problems of transportation
Fuller, J. F. C. (John Frederick Charles)
Railroads -- History; Transportation; Trucks
If the road will not suit the vehicle, the vehicle must be made to suit
the road. Here again the difficulty is economically almost insuperable.
Balloon tyres, the use of light trailers and of multi-wheel vehicles
will partially overcome the difficulty; but rubber rapidly deteriorates
in tropical countries, and though a vehicle, such as the Renault six
twin-wheel car, has carried out some wonderful performances in the
Sahara and elsewhere, the maintenance of twelve balloon tyres
practically rules it out of court in most undeveloped countries.
If the bullock wagon is restricted to certain areas, and if the lorry
demands a road which is prohibitively expensive, the only remaining
sources of transport which can feed the railway are the pack animal and
the human porter.
_The Pack Animal._ In examining this last system of transport, I will
begin with the human pack-animal, the native porter. Not only is this
means of carriage the most primitive of all, which renders it somewhat
of an anachronism in the twentieth century, but it is extravagant in the
extreme. Economically it is unsound, since the human pack-animal stands
in the way of the development of his country. In the first place his
productive work is lost, and in the second, the load carried is so small
as to offer little encouragement to the producer. Last, and by no means
least, unlike the railway, as the amount increases, so does the cost per
ton mile increase with it.
On a large scale the system is impossible, and the substitution of pack
animals for porters is but little less uneconomical, except in
mountainous countries and desert lands, and in the latter, it would seem
that the reign of the camel is approaching its end, since in most places
where a camel can go a car can follow.
TWO-DIMENSIONAL MOVEMENT
The above, I admit, is a very brief summary of an immense and complex
subject, namely, the bridging of the gap which exists between the
producer and the arterial railway, or the producer and his market, if it
be a distant one. Ruling out pack and porter as being too uneconomical
to be used on a large scale, we are left with the wagon, the lorry and
the light railway. All these three means can cover great distances, but
they do not solve the problem, because the solution does not only lie in
power to traverse distance, but in ability to cover the largest area in
the shortest time.
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