56 BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



3,000 trucks and tractor-trucks of from }4 ton to 15 tons capacity. 

 These together with the "Mosquito Fleet" and the relatively small 

 number of supervisory passenger cars of a better class, make a total 

 motor vehicle strength of over 8,000 units in the Bell System. In 

 addition to this Company owned equipment, there are employed 

 annually by the Associated Companies several hundred hired motor 

 vehicles. 



In the neighborhood of 25,000 employees depend upon the Sys- 

 tem's transportation equipment as an indispensable part of their 

 daily work, that is, in its capacity of labor saving machinery as well 

 as in moving the men, together with their tools and materials, from 

 their bases of operation to the job and back, and also between jobs. 

 The annual cost of providing this transportation service for the Bell 

 System is in the neighborhood of twelve to fourteen million dollars. 

 Although this total is a sizable amount, it is actually small when com- 

 pared with the service rendered and when considered upon the basis 

 of slightly less than $6 average cost per car per day used, including 

 all units from 750 to 30,000 pounds net carrying capacities. 



Studies are constantly being made in connection with the oppor- 

 tunities presented along the line of increasing the mechanical effi- 

 ciencies and lowering the maintenance costs of the various units. As 

 the result of this work much is being accomplished in conserving the 

 working time and energy of the men by employing proper labor sav- 

 ing facilities with the motor vehicles in order to do practically all of 

 the slow, heavy work by proper application of power from the motor 

 vehicle engines. The continuation of this field of study should tend 

 toward offsetting the constantly increasing construction costs. 



The realization of the most important savings in the motor vehicle 

 field, that is by making the truck units serve the gangs as labor sav- 

 ing machines in addition to their use as transportation equipment, 

 involves the use of winches driven from the truck engines, derricks 

 for all kinds of pole work, for handling loading pots, etc., suitable 

 trailers for transporting poles, reels of cable and other materials, the 

 use of quick acting safe drawbars for trailing loads behind the trucks, 

 the use of the truck equipment for pulling the proper tension into 

 aerial cable strand and for pulling in the aerial cable, the use of the 

 power equipment with suitable accessory appliances for pulling in 

 or removing underground cable, of power driven collapsible reels for 

 quickly pulling down and coiling up open wire, employing improved 

 methods with the assistance of the power equipment for the handling 

 of all heavy loads (such as reels of cable on and off trucks), and for 

 numerous other uses. In addition to these savings, important 



