TIME TO LOOK BEYOND THE HORIZON
By John Parry

Invent a better mousetrap and it is said the world will beat a path to your door.

Invent a new type of rail vehicle and there are people who will do their best to beat you into the ground.

After 4 years, a project to install Britain's simplest passenger vehicle on Britain's simplest length of public railway line is still apparently several months away from resolving all outstanding operational issues. There have been over 100 meetings and 2,500 items of correspondence, 5 different Railtrack Project Managers, 6 consultants needing to be employed, 5 different safety bodies involved, £150,000 of expenditure, not counting the vehicle and 2,000 miles run in trials, testing and driver familiarisation.

There are railways and there are railways. Official approval to carry the Public in PPM trams on four private railways, at Welshpool, Bristol, Caernarfon and Kidderminster, took on average a painless 6 weeks and about £5,000 to arrange. Within the organisations of Britain's rail network all matters are professionally conducted and few items of detail unreasonably raised, but taken as a whole, the amount of work and time involved must seem extravagant.

Removing Car 12 for a full engineering check may create a valuable breathing space.

Nevertheless, Parry and its associates are not ones to give up too easily and in November the inevitable letter was sent to the Strategic Rail Authority pointing out just how difficult, and arguably unnecessary so, the industry's procedures were. The response came back promptly describing just how helpful the industry had in fact been. My reply was as positive as possible: Recalling the words of the Damon Runyon character who found himself broke and in a sewer, anything that happens from now on can only cheer me up!

Meanwhile the threat of war and world recession has affected, but not strangled, Parry Associates' machinery export market. Orders and enquiries continue to arrive from all over the developing world. As expected, while construction there remains a priority, transport is now beginning to climb up the agenda. Out of the blue we hear from one of our most successful tile equipment customers in West Africa that a national Transport Ministry has realised that one answer to chaotic road traffic congestion is to use the old 'colonial' railway to create suburban passenger transport corridors, rather than cut swathes through the city, building 4 lane highways. To transport the same number of people by rail would use a quarter of the space. It was this realisation in the late 1980s which laid the foundations of the People Mover venture.

PPM is now actively responding to each such interest from overseas markets. But the export campaign must be founded on domestic 'showcase' projects, so the implementation at Stourbridge is still strategically important. Nevertheless, running there just one day a week on the quiet day of Sunday, will restrict the rate at which operational experience is gained. This is why in future months more will be heard about our previously-announced strategy of seeking operating revenue by co-operating with the preserved railway companies in putting PPM vehicles into service. Quite a few of these even prefer carrying passengers on their trains than briefcases to meetings.

The 'radar' has therefore to be more finely tuned to situations where those on the frontline are empowered to take key decisions. An endangered species in New Millennium Britain.

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JPA ESTABLISHES FIRST FOOTHOLD IN AFGHANISTAN CONSTRUCTION SECTOR

USA financed building materials programme launched

The war torn nation of Afghanistan has dropped off the front page now that the bombs are no longer falling. Typically after all the military activity, it is left to practical people to try to pick up the pieces. As in post diaster Sierra Leone and Mozambique, Parry Associates' technology has popped out of the card index as the best means of combining reconstruction effort with the creation of local livelihoods. After several months of negotiation and two visits by a US Government funded ngo, a decision has been made to commission the initial phase of a reconstruction programme using Parry technology. An $18,000 consignment of equipment will be air-freighted to Ashkabad in Turkmanistan to be taken by road to Herat in order to establish a first production-training base. The programme will be based on the western side of the country close to the Iranian border.

Activity will begin with the reconstruction of a school using Parry semi sheet technology, walling blocks and floor slabs made on the same vibrating machines which make the roofing products. A new Parry soil block press is also included in the initial consignment which will be used to press tens of thousands of blocks for a huge perimeter wall for the programme site.

The team's ambitions are potentially far-reaching using the hoped-for success of the 1st Phase to replicate project sites in 32 districts.

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ACCRA IN A JAM LOOKS AT TRAM

Authorities consider rail based solution to intolerable traffic congestion

We are indebted to Tim Gamor, proprietor of Piege Construction, a Ghanaian company which began building houses using Parry roofing tile technology 15 years ago. Tim has been researching a situation which is of considerable interest to Parry People Movers. Despite efforts at highway construction, including a dual carriageway ring road, the growth of car use in Accra has been overwhelming.

During a visit to Ghana by John Parry in the 1990s Tim and he drove down to James Town where an unused spur of Ghana's national rail system extends to the seafront. Even with the much less congested traffic at the time the opportunity was noted to introduce the use of trams along this line.

This has now been noted by the Ghanaian government transport authorities which have produced a paper proposing conversion of three existing lines to suburban commuter rail services. These run from Accra centre to James Town and other lines radiating out to Tema, Achimota and Nsawam. The Ministry have been made aware of the possibility for the PPM mode to be used for this purpose. Discussions may take place in Accra in the New Year.

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PRE-CHRISTMAS RUN OF ORDERS CREATES BUSY PERIOD FOR WORKSHOP

At about the same time as the large Afghanistan order came, a number of brick and tile equipment orders were also received: for Jamaica, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Ghana, Sudan and The Gambia. These have generated a heavy workload for the design, fabrication, and assembly sections after a relatively quiet period over the summer. In the 'pipeline', further orders are under negotiation for projects in Hawaii, Bolivia, Somalia and Kenya. The last of these will be particularly welcome as it will constitute a renewal of important past relationships with a team which in the 1990s worked together to accomplish a major roofing project involving over 2,000 houses in eastern Nairobi.

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THAI ASSOCIATES OPT FOR SMALLER FORMAT TILES

Early in December 2002 Geoffrey Wheeler, the Director of the Centre for Vocational Building Technology in Udon Thani, Thailand, was visited by senior staff from the Charity, Habitat for Humanity's offfices in the Phillipines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. H for H have used Parry roofing technology successfully in several African projects and according to Geoffrey are now keen to look at the system for applications in East Asia. In his email he conveyed his view that Parry equipment is durable and reliable. He is happy to introduce people to the Roman II and Pantile in particular which his experience in Thailand has shown to be much more marketable than the larger roofing products.

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FROM LOW COST ROOFING TO 'NO COST ROOFING'

Missionaries in Sudan begin to implement Parry clay roofing technology in near 'cash-less' communities

Imagine a truck setting out from London to Aberdeen using unmaintained, muddy farm tracks with threats of bandits, no police, no garages and a journey which even if successful will take several days. This situation exists in areas of Africa.

One example is the Southern Sudan where wars and general lawlessness have created economies where petroleum products and any other material which comes from far afield are extraordinarily expensive and frequently completely unavailable.

The area is no desert. there is fertile soil, reliable seasonal rail, trees, grass, game, and people. With a lull in the civil war and possibly even a settlement, these people are resuming normal lives and seeking to rebuild homes, schools, markets, churches. For many years the area has had a lively brickmaking tradition - because of the high cost of cement, concrete blocks are rarely encountered. During a time, over a century ago, when Italian missionaries established bases in the south, a form of clay roofing tile was produced. These traditional half round products were extremely heavy, consuming large quantities of scarce straight timber to support the roof. Their use was therefore confined to ecclesiastical buildings and the common people made do with grass thatch, or if wealthier, corrugated iron.

Over 20 years ago Parry Associates had been asked to intervene to introduce a more modern and economic form of clay roof tile production, a kiln was built and some products used for house construction - but then came the bombs and bullets and commercial activities ceased.

After a pause of 20 years it seems now is a time to start again. Two British missionary groups have returned to the Southern Sudan and have begun to look into areas of employment creation while reconstructing classrooms, clinics, churches and houses, using only the materials from their own locality. There is both clay and firewood available (trees grow rapidly in the foothills bordering the Nile floodplain). Both groups independently approached Parry Associates as prospective suppliers of clay pantile equipment which can be operated manually in remote localities.

Two portable production kits have been ordered and have just been despatched to the Sudan via Entebbe in Uganda. The organisers plan to operate their plants on a 'community' basis, paying the workers with finished tiles which will be seen as better than cash.

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HIGH SCHOOL 'WAFFLE' UNITS MAKE NEAT GARDEN PLANTERS

The Workshops at Cradley Heath developed in 2000 a quick and easy way of producing light weight hollow concrete elements for use in raised floor construction for the High School Project in Mozambique. With hundreds of test samples made during the research programme to play with, and not wanting something potentially useful to go to waste, the Design Manager, Paul Davis, created a simple two piece concrete stand on which to place an upturned waffle.

The result; a garden planter. Parry Associates' local aggregates and cement supplier has taken an interest and put a couple on display and if the product appears marketable the works will supply planters to callers for £40.

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WORK GOES AHEAD ON ANOTHER MOZAMBIQUE HIGH SCHOOL

News received by email from Maputo on December 12th - another 'High School' (classroom built on stilts to serve as a community refuge during floods) is under way at Conhane in Gaza Province, and a provisional date for inauguration set at 12 February 2003. This project, as previously, is being managed by the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Mozambique, private foundations and individuals in the UK. The specially designed construction technology achieved massive material-saving by the use of a coffering system like waffle cake creating a series of square cavities in the reinforced concrete upper floor.

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NEW BRICKMAKING VENTURE A FIRST FOR JAMAICA
Small starter plant pioneers production of concrete facing bricks for the Clarendon housing market.

At the instigation of a Birmingham based frozen food and catering business, JPA have developed a new brickmaking system for the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean.

The manufacturing system incorporates our tried and tested larger format vibrating table and uses a vacuum formed base mould within a steel tray creating a handy stacking system for the bricks. This will conserve workshop floor space and speed up internal handling. The plant will produce six bricks at a time, every two minutes.

It is destined for Jamaica where the UK based partners intend to set up production and offer the bricks produced to builders in the Clarendon area of the island.

The specification of the brick product; shape, size and strength, is based on London Brick Company products. This has been achieved with samples already supplied and accepted. The starter plants with 100-6 impression base moulds, will produce 150,000 bricks per year. each brick carries the initials of the manufacturer.

The new brickmaking system is both innovative and economic and could provide a solution to the requirement for small scale concrete brickmaking in other parts of the world.

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THE HUMAN POWERED MULTIVIBE INTRODUCED TO MARKET VIA WEBSITE

One of Parry Associates' most successful products - over 1,000 units supplied - is the 12V DC electric 'Multivibe'. This detachable unit can be run from a car battery or from the mains through a battery charger. We have long been aware of the need for a human powered portable, detachable unit able to perform the same job. This has now been introduced.

Prior to this mention in our occasional newsletter, we decided for the first time to announce the product via the company's website, www.parrytech.com.

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