CARGO AND COALING FACILITIES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 235, 22 June 1918, Page 9

CARGO AND COALING FACILITIES

MR. JAMES JARCHBANKS'S TRIP

UP-TO-DATE PANAMA PORTS

That Hie Wellingloa Harbour Board has seen fit lo ugreo to send its engineer (Mr. James Marchbiuiks) to America to observe and take full account of nil up-to-date methods in connection with the handling of coal and devices calculated to facilitate the working of a modern port, must be of interest to Ihe whole of the Dominion. Mr. Marchbanks's experience as an engineer to a big-railway company, to which ho has added a wealth of information regarding harbours and cargo-handling plants and methods, should make his report a very valuable one. Mr. Marchbiiiilcs, wlij is to leave for America jiext month, iirfp.'ined a Dominion reporter yesterday that i tho handling of coal was to bo his chief consideration in America. As was well kuown, saitPMr. Marchbanks, the Americans have devisel some wonderful plants to facilitate tho unloading of coil and the bunkering of vessels, and the amount otcoal they can handle in a given time as compared with the slow rate of work in New Zealand was enough to opei one s eyes. In Wellington an eight-men gang would shift about twelve lons &n hour. With tho latest American plants 500 tons of coal could be shifted in an.hour. Mr. Marchbanks said that his first objectivo would be the Panama Canal-a work of im'menso interest to ovary engineer in the world. There, both at Colon and Balboa, the Ameiican..Government had established wonderful coal-handling plants, which were doing gnat work with the increasing number of nssels that are ; using tho canal. AH steamers from Australia or New Zealand proceeding via Panama make cargo arrangemants on the understanding that coal will bo procurable at Panama. And it is. There were indications already that the coal trade of tho Panama Canal was going to bo a very big thing, 'Jiuch bigger, of course, when the mercantile marine of the world resumes normal conditions. Tho engineering papers had long onough ago made the engineers of tho worlS familiar with the great plan s which have been installed in the ports at either end of the big canal tor dealin- with coal. All,the plants were electacally driven. ■ At Colon, tho steamer which brings the coal draws up on one side of a big pier, and the vessel or vessels that require bunker coal were berth-, el on-the opposite side In between tho two sides a huge trench had h en dug and suitably protected against leakage, so that the interior,' so,to speak, ot the pier or wharf became a huge trench- or Sry dock. This was the storage dump for coal. Not only was it thrown into a pit below the level of the decks ot Uβ steamer that required the coal on the other side of the pier, but it below the level of the sea-bed below the keel of the vessels. Then when sunplies wero 'good tho stocks rose up to the level or above the level of the floor of the wharf, by which time, as could bo imagined, an immense quantity of coal had been- stored. Many-armed mobile cranes, with great grabs at the end ot each arm, wero able lo operate at eaci hold at the same time, and from there they raised their tons and deposited the coal into steel' trucks (electrically driven) and running on a double track, and the coal could be tipped nt any point that mi"ht be desired. - If the coal was to bo tipped into the- dump, the process was simple, us the steel trucks were tipped into, shoots that convey the coal to tho dumps, and there were huge digge? cranes, manipulating vast grabs, which control the whole area of the dump, and uould shift the coal from point to point (in the dump) or else bring it up to the conveyors which electrically carry the coal to tho hoppers that feed tho shoots which lead to tiie bunker holes iu the steamer's decks. • Contrary to expectation, tho laws or gravity wore not brought into requisition as much as one would expect. Even if Ihe coal were -brought' right round the pier from the unloading vessel to tho ono that required coal, it wan dropped from the trucks on the elevated tracks almost ft the level of the floor of the pier, by means of hoppers, and then gradually raised again by> means of a moderatelygraded belted carrier, and big mc-ftal pipes, through which the coal was forced to the particular , hoppers that wero bcitig used "to feed tho hungry bunkers.

This was roughly the plan followed at Colon and Balboa (on the Pacific side), 'but 'did not nearly exhaust the many great syetems of handling coal in largo quantities that exist in America. Ono method might Iμ suitable to one port that would not perhaps fit tho conditions of another, ■

Mr. Marchbanks expects to visit all tho Dig American ports—New Orleans, Mewport News,. Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and perhaps ever. Halifax (n>. Nov> Scotia) . The general equipment of wuarves'aml building of same, eheds.aud uielr and other matters of moment concerning efficient port control will come nuclei , Mr. Marchbanks's field of inquiry during his absence. He anticipates being away from New Zealand for about fo'ac months.