Production Engineering.
(Part XV.)
Reducing Material Handling Costs.

(E. T. Spidy, Superintendent of Workshops.)

One of the most outstanding faults of our present Workshops is the lack of facilities for handling material from place to place.

Consequently, too much loading, handling and moving has had to be done by hand. In these days of mechanical appliances for cost reduction, our methods are therefore relatively very costly, laborious, slow, and-beyond question-obsolete.

“The Ransome” Electric Runabout Crane.

The layout of the new Workshops is such as to provide a minimum distance for the travel of material from its source to its erected destination, and the one great essential -space-is provided, so that the use of mechanical moving equipment may be substituted for hand labour.

With our occupation of the new shops, the necessity for skilled men doing labouring work will be abolished.

Some of the changes in facilities and methods will interest you-Overhead Cranes are being erected in all wagon shops so that lifting will be done by them in place of the present hand jacks.

Power Lifting Jacks will be provided in place of hand jacks for lifting cars for the removal of the bogies. All cars will pass over this power unit as they go on to the Traverser and into the shop.

Electric Trucks, of the elevating platform type, will move material up to 1½ tons weight from place to place around and between shops. Proper roads are being provided on all outside routes, and special trays will be made to suit all special classes of work. Some of these trucks are in operation now.

Electric Portable Cranes, that will hoist and carry 1½ tons, are being obtained to pick up and bring into shops such items as boiler plates, heavy dies, tyres, etc., that are stored in the yard beyond the reach of the regular crane covered areas. These are fast working cranes and will load and unload trucks, etc., and supersede hand work that is very laborious and slow to-day.

Foundry Yard Travelling Cranes, equipped with magnets to handle mechanically all foundry metals from the incoming wagons to bins and to charging platforms as required, and equipped with grab buckets to handle sand, etc., will be employed.

The Midway Gantry Crane is an overhead traveller that crosses the whole of the tracks

Electric Tiering Truck.

page 13 between the shops and passes one end of all the main shops. By its use a loaded wagon may be unloaded close to any shop, and the wagon itself, if necessary, carried to any point on the midway, without the necessity of shunting. Heavy weights may be transported similarly as required.

Cranes over Storage Yards are being provided, where structural material is stored, by having the shop traveller pass through the end of the shop and out to the yard.

Electric Car Pullers will be used at shops requiring frequent shunts. These do not supersede the shunting locomotive, but they do away with the hold-ups that are sometimes inevitable when one has to depend on the shunting engine only.

The object of these devices is to make for “continuity of operations.” All those concerned will appreciate that every item is a necessity, and that they will make for efficiency inasmuch as every shop will have a real “material moving service.” Being in the transportation business, as we all are, we ought to be the most efficient “movers of material.”

Will all shop men just give these items some thought so that the fullest and most effective use is made of them, when they are made available for use?

Auckland Railway Traffic Football Team,1913.
Back Row—^*J. C. Taylor, v.-capt. (wing for.), R. Campbell, (full back), ^*A. G. Aldridge (three-quarter), E. R. Wheeler (for.)
3rd Row—G. A. Avey (for.), A. Porber (for.), D. C. Mitchell (for.), ^*S. J. Blaikie (three-quarter), C. C. Howard (three-quarter) P. C. Wallace (full back), W. H. Ryan (for.), F. W. Aickin (for.)
2nd Row—^*J. C. McCarthy (Manager), T. R. Aickin (three-quarter), S. G. Walker (for.), W. T. Hornibrooke, capt. (for.) J. Lealie (cen.-three-quarter), E. C. McKay (for.), E. C. Brown (referee)
Front Row—A. H. Sage (for.), B. Tangney (half), L. V. Hickey (five-eighth).