OF the 455,000 trucks or passenger-carrying motor-vehicles in the United Kingdom at least 5500 are now fitted with compression-ignition engines, 57 per cent of these being fitted to passenger-carrying vehicles. The engines are of the direct-injection and of the separate-chamber types.
This paper does not discuss the merits of one system as compared with another, but merely the findings as regards costs and general service as derived from data supplied by the manufacturers and users.
By courtesy of the London Passenger Transport Board, data are presented on compression-ignition engines as compared with gasoline engines operating in the London area and the experiences regarding the adoption of the former are related. Another operating company has in service 50 vehicles equipped with Gardner direct-injection engines.
Several direct-injection systems are illustrated, and curves for comparative fuel-consumptions of the Leyland engine, using gasoline and using gas oil, are presented.