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of shoreline, makes it on the other hand largely a lighterage port, which necessitates extra handling of goods and adds the cost of operating the lighters—which someone -must. pay for, even though free lighterage is offered in many cases. Even with this handicap a tremendous improvement could be made if all facilities such as railroad tracks, steamship and rail- road terminals, warehouses, car fer- ries, etc., could be relocated to the best advantage and all designed to fully utilize modern’ mechanical methods of handling material. To ef- fect such a program will require years of time, millions of capital ex- penditure, and the overcoming of many other obstacles. This in general is the work being initiated by the Port of New York Authority, and its rep- resentative, Mr. Wilson, will no doubt agree that they have a long and com- plicated problem before them. Mechanical Devices Must Pay With this as a background we can turn to a closer study of the present use of mechanical devices for han- dling material. It is quite obvious that such a study must consider all conditions as they are and as they probably will be some years in the future, and not as we would like them to be. The use of mechanical devices is again subject to the eco- nomic law that they must pay a rea- sonable return on the invested cap- ital to justify their use. It might be argued that in some cases ma- chinery is justified even though it does not yield an adequate return on account of certain indirect benefits which may accrue from its use. It is often rather difficult, however, to make this argument convincing with privately owned operating companies, and where it is effective with pub- licly owned operated companies some- one must stand for the direct operat- ing loss, and that usually means that the public pays it in higher taxes. One feature mitigating against the use of machinery is the design of existing structures. It is all very well to say, for example, that a pier should be equipped with a battery of cargo cranes such as is seen at Hamburg— and figures might be produced _ to show more economical handling by their use; but if the pier has founda- tions which will not stand the added weight and an area on which they cannot be successfully mounted, a complete new pier is necessary be- fore the cranes may be used. The old pier may have many years of useful life under existing conditions of op- eration, and it would be exceedingly difficult in many cases to prove the economic justification of a new pier, the increased size, in order to get even if physical conditions permitted the advantage of crane _ operation. This is only an example, but many similar ones could be cited for other buildings and other types of machin- ery. There is also the question of whether present established methods of stevedoring will permit the efficient use of machinery. These methods cannot be changed overnight, and a great deal of educational work faces those who attempt to introduce ma- chinery which requires radical changes in methods. Fortunately, reports from industry as a whole and the views of labor leaders as expressed in public Use Mechanical Devices To Cut Handling Cost In this paper the author has made a sane and impartial analy- sis of the problem of more effi- cient handling of freight at the port of New York. The engi- neer dealing with this question must go beyond the mechanical efficiency of the handling device suggested for adoption, to the correct solution of all the ques- tions involved in determining the possible overall economy which will result. It is important, how- ever, for those who are engaged in this business to be of open mind and to make _ themselves thoroughly familiar with new de- velopments in mechanical han- dling methods with the view of adoption if cost can be reduced. statements indicate that labor is be- coming more receptive to improved mechanical methods, and as this feel- ing increases it will gradually spread to all branches of industry, including material handling, and make this problem easier to solve. The introduction of mechanical de- vices has been further hampered by installations which have not proved their worth from an economic stand- point. The reasons why such instal- lations have not been successful may have been due to any one or a com- bination of various causes, some of which are lack of accurate operating and cost data on which to base a re- liable analysis of the problem, fail- ure to appreciate the relation of eX- isting stevedoring methods to operat- ing methods required with the ma- chinery to be used, geographical lo- cation of the installation in the port, MARINE REVIEW—June, 1927 failure of the tonnage handled to meet the anticipated amount, selection of a type of machinery not best suited to the peculiar requirements and operat- ing conditions, ete. No spirit of criticism is intended in any of the foregoing, it being merely an attempt to point out some of the difficulties confronting the port, and to show by what follows that in spite of these handicaps the port has _pro- gressed and is progressing in the use of mechanical handling devices. Methods In Handling Bulk Freight Starting with bulk freight, which best lends itself to the use of ma- chinery, we find the’ port’ using methods which are probably only sur- passed by the Great Lakes ports—the most efficient in the world in this re- spect due, of course, to peculiar op- erating conditions, which cannot be duplicated in the port of New York. Coal for ocean shipment is unloaded by nine car dumpers which can ay- erage a car of coal about every two minutes for each dumper. This means that each dumper if handling 70-ton- capacity cars could load a 5000-ton boat in about 5 hours, making reason- able allowance for shifting the boat and for other delays. Coal for the large power stations is handled by high-speed grab-bucket hoists han- dling from 250 to 800 tons per hour to heights of as much as 200 feet with a power consumption of about 1 kilowatt-hour per ton. At this rate one hoist can unload a 5000-ton boat (the equivalent of 75 carloads) in about 24 hours. Smaller grab buckets and flight conveyors are handling the coal for local dealers, and, while not as efficient as the larger hoists, are certainly reducing labor costs to a minimum. There is no doubt an op- portunity for increased efficiency by the consolidation of these small deal- ers, thus enabling them to combine their handling facilities and work them more effectively. Grain-han- dling facilities are quite adequately provided by five storage elevators with a capacity of seven million bushels and equipped for direct load- ing to vessels, twelve floating ele- vators for loading ocean vessels from barges, and one pneumatic floating elevator for transferring from ocean vessels to smaller boats. The charge for handling grain is one cent a bushel plus $1.50 per thousand, with an addition of $4 per thousand for trimming. One of the large storage elevators has a record of loading 221,- 000 bushels into a steamer in 16 hours, and could easily handle three or four such boats a week. Two railroads (Continued on Page 54) 37