MOTORING
Railways Into Roads An Interesting suggestion was made the other day by Colonel A. S. Redman, lately chairman of Traffic Commis- sioners for the West Midland area, in an address to the Institute of Transport. He was discussing the advisability of closing down certain intermediate railway stations (with reference to the competition between road and rail passenger services) and " feeding " the more important by road trans- port as well as substituting 'bus-services for branch train- services. His suggestion was that where traffic was light the permanent way itself might be built into a motor-road. The cost would be partly met by exacting a toll from users not connected with the railways owning the line.
The Chrysalis of a Motor Road He quoted as an instance where the scheme would be of obvious benefit to the majority, the main-line of the Great Central Railway, running between London and Northern England, which, he said, was little used in comparison with others. On the face of it the suggestion is ingenious and, as the speaker pointed out, the main objections to building special motorways, high costs and what he called disturbance, would not apply. Presumably the bed of the railway would have to be re-made as well as widened and the tolls would have to be fairly heavy until it was all paid for, but the scheme sounds practical, if only because little, if any, land would have to be bought to make a 2oo-mile road serving the Yorkshire and Lancashire industrial areas. The chrysalis of the first English autostrada is there already and, like its continental models, it has no hills perceptible by motors and no corners. Further, it would offer a gleam of hope to many thousands of depressed holders of railway-shares.
Competing With America Few serious attempts have been made by British manu- facturers to beat the modem American car on its own par- ticular merits. These can roughly be summed up as cheap speed with comfort, the related implications being, of course, exceptional smoothness and silence of running, brilliant acceleration, luxurious suspension. Until recently there have been obvious reasons why we could not make cars like these at the price, lack of capital and experience in that class of mass-production, together with the fatal drawback of a comparatively small demand for the type. The good American car is very difficult to beat at the money, even at a price higher than the actual, but it must be remembered that the number of people in this country who can afford a car of over 25 h.p. is insignificant compared with those who, however much they may dislike its bijou dimensions, find the efficient smaller English car at less than half the price of the American a good working substitute.
The Humber " Super "-Snipe Humbers were among the first to design a car that might reasonably be expected to compete with America, their first Snipe being the nearest approach to the elusive model. Since then successive Snipes have regularly improved, steadily catching up with the 8o mile-an-hour, noiseless £450 car with the shockless riding, until today the latest example may fairly be said to have done it. It does do 85 miles an hour on top as well as 8; if it has no overdrive, its third gives you an easy 6o ; its springing is independent in front ; its body is roomy ; and it costs £385, as against £445, £448, £495 and £515 for such of its rivals sold here as have approximately the same sized engines.
The Results of Weight Reduction It is, essentially, a shorter edition of the normal 28 h.p. Snipe, though I had nothing to complain of in the amount of body-space. It weighs 3o cwt., as against the 371 of the normal Snipe (less than most Americans of the same power), and to that may be attributed its really startling performance. Its specification, very unusually, gives the acceleration figures to be expected—on top gear, io to 3o m.p.h. in 6i, seconds, and io to 6o in 17.1 seconds; using all gears, from rest to 6o in 16.6 seconds. I found it ran very quietly, that its gear-change was quick and easy, its gears almost silent, that the springing and road-holding were excellent, the steering exceptionally good and the brakes, including the hand-brake, powerful and quick in action. It struck me as a very com- fortable car, the only criticisms I had to make being that the luggage-accommodation vas much reduced by the hous- ing of the spare wheel inside the boot, and that the rear vision was poor. I should have liked the roof higher.
Algarkirke and Old Leake These are only two of them and you can substitute any others you like. They are a couple of villages on the edge of the Lincolnshire Fens, looking, as do their brothers in most of that enormous county, as if the sea had only yester- day given them up and was as likely as not to return tomor- row and engulf them again. In spite of their names (it is odd how distinguished are place-names on the whole of the east coast) it is not themselves that attract you but the singu- lar country in which they have been washed up. If you look at East Lincolnshire on a large-scale map you will probably decide that it is a place to avoid. You argue, with a show of reason, that no expanse of flatness like this could possibly have anything to look at anywhere in it. When, driven by circumstances, you finally enter that extraordinary corner of England, you make new and splendid discoveries.
A Study in Colours It is a land of the most delicate colours imaginable and they are never better than in winter. The land is flat as a sea becalmed, the sky by some peculiar illusion as flat, and of the three parent hues the green of the salt turf is the most vivid. The other two are the silver of the sky and the rich jet of the dikes, and they are sometimes as vigorous among the pastels of the whole as would be a splash of crimson. Black, silver and green is the whole world as you crawl through that rectangular maze of ditches which would have done so well for Alice and the Red Queen, and whether the sun shines or not (it is more likely to be doing it here than anywhere else in Great Britain) the one impression you never get is a grey one.
Irish Memories The light is unlike the light anywhere else except in Eire and it has very much the same softening effect on everything it touches. You are _quite often reminded of mountain-sides in Kerry and Cork, of the Bog of Allan, when you are look- ing at the fringe of 10o square miles of reclaimed marsh, the counterpart of Holland on the other side of the North Sea. And there is peace in those endless solitudes. You need not halt at Algarkirke or Old Leake, but if you do, nobody will do anything to break in upon your contemplation. There are two towns you notice as you go through from the west and south; Bourne, whose chief claim to notoriety is that it is the birthplace of the most famous dressmaker in history, and Boston. Bourne you may leave to its reflected glory (it was Worth's), but Boston is a place to discover. It is quite [Note.—Readers' requests for advice from our Motoring Correspondent on the choice of new cars should be accom- panied by a stamped and addressed envelope. The highest price payable must be given, as well as the type of body required. No advice can be given on the purchase, sale or exchange of used cars.]
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