Motor Road Transport For Commercial Purposes
(Liquid Fuel, Steam, Electricity)

 CHAPTER XIV TRAILERS It is a matter of surprise that the use to which. trailers are applied in Great Britain, in connection with. mechanical transport propelled by means of liquid fuel, is so limited. Many owners of commercial motors fitted with internal combustion engines connect the use of trailers with steam driven vehicles only, yet there is no reason— as was demonstrated in many countries during the war—why the trailer should not, in many cases, be employed successfully with the petrol-driven van. One of the chief disadvantages is that the clutch of the internal combustion engined chassis is subjected to severe stress when hauling a loaded trailer. The taking-up load is naturally much greater; and there is no doubt that before the war many van-owners, although. enterprising, gave up the idea of using trailers after a trial, chiefly on account of clutch trouble. To Obviate Clutch Trouble. There is, however, no practical reason why such trouble should be experienced if the chassis is designed with a view to withstand the extra loads. This point should be fully grasped before any experiment is tried, for it is courting disaster to expect a feature built to transmit a definite maximum amount of power in order to overcome a stated maximum resistance, to work successfully under conditions of greater severity. A detriment to the employment of a trailer of the heavy type is the reduced maximum legal speed, but with many classes of goods the increased period of 112