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

 TRAILERS 113 time taken for the deliveries would be more than compensated for by the extra loading capacity available. Disadvantages. There are two other disadvantages which will at once strike the trader—first, the possible necessity of having to employ a second man to travel on the trailer ; and, secondly, the difficulty of manoeuvring when loading and unloading. Many firms already send out two men on each van, so that in these cases no additional expense need be incurred, while provided that brakes, controllable from the driver’s seat, are fitted to the trailer, it can be run as a rule unattended. With regard to the question of ease of manipulation, there are trailers designed so that they can be steered when run in a reverse direction ; thus their use need not be discounted on the score of difficulty in manoeuvring. With some trades the limiting factor is the working hours of labour. If a man’s full day is taken up with the delivery of goods which can be carried without overloading on his van alone, there is little to be gained by the use of a trailer. Advantages. The most important of the advantages is obviously the extra load which can. be carried, which means that the van can earn considerably more money for a comparatively small additional expenditure. As can easily be seen, the variation between the minimum and maximum paying loads of a van is greatly increased by the use of a trailer. For instance, in the case of a man owning a 3-ton. vehicle, the minimum paying load will probably be about 1 ton. The variation between his minimum and maximum paying loads is ■ 8—(1889)