Our business is designing and making industrial battery chargers, and we recently had a call from the Corran Ferry near Fort William in Scotland, to go up and have a look at the chargers on the ferry.
We supplied these new in 2000, and apart from any early call just after commissioning, they have run without any failures.
It is a 500-mile run each way from where we are, we drove up on Wednesday, stopped overnight and sorted the problem out on the Thursday, then after stopping again that evening we drove back Friday, left at 09.18 and got indoors at 17.00. The road from Fort William to Glasgow is all single carriageway, after that it is dual-carriageway and motorway (freeway)
We averaged 15.4 mpg on LPG going up, a little less coming back, that's equivalent in money terms to 27 mpg on petrol. Unleaded is £1.32 a litre, LPG varies but £0.76p a litre is average.
We spent some of Thursday toodling around Loch Leven, and the mpg shot up to 20mpg on LPG, highest we have seen.
The Discovery ran very well, had some really bad weather on the way up but no water leaks and the car ran like a train.
Oil consumption was about 0.5 litres but it was slightly high from the oil change I did earlier in the week. Just confirms what a great long-distance drive these cars are.
Here are a few pic's, the ferry itself, then the earlier ferry which is used as a standby, then some pictures of Loch Leven. The mountain goats were wild, and a bit shy, but we got a shot of a couple of them
The ferry at the Fort William side of the Loch.
The older ferry, Maid of Glencoul, now used as the standby. Half the capacity of the 2001 built ferry.
Two of the four chargers that we supplied, left-hand one is active, right-hand one is the emergency standby one.
One of the two Cummins engines.
The other engine
Voith gearbox
Looking down Loch Leven to Loch Linnhe, this is tidal and mixed fresh/salt water.
Highland Goat, probably wild, very shy. had to take quite a long telephoto shot to get this
Another view down Loch Leven
Inside the slate quarry at Ballaculish
Peter
We supplied these new in 2000, and apart from any early call just after commissioning, they have run without any failures.
It is a 500-mile run each way from where we are, we drove up on Wednesday, stopped overnight and sorted the problem out on the Thursday, then after stopping again that evening we drove back Friday, left at 09.18 and got indoors at 17.00. The road from Fort William to Glasgow is all single carriageway, after that it is dual-carriageway and motorway (freeway)
We averaged 15.4 mpg on LPG going up, a little less coming back, that's equivalent in money terms to 27 mpg on petrol. Unleaded is £1.32 a litre, LPG varies but £0.76p a litre is average.
We spent some of Thursday toodling around Loch Leven, and the mpg shot up to 20mpg on LPG, highest we have seen.
The Discovery ran very well, had some really bad weather on the way up but no water leaks and the car ran like a train.
Oil consumption was about 0.5 litres but it was slightly high from the oil change I did earlier in the week. Just confirms what a great long-distance drive these cars are.
Here are a few pic's, the ferry itself, then the earlier ferry which is used as a standby, then some pictures of Loch Leven. The mountain goats were wild, and a bit shy, but we got a shot of a couple of them
The ferry at the Fort William side of the Loch.
The older ferry, Maid of Glencoul, now used as the standby. Half the capacity of the 2001 built ferry.
Two of the four chargers that we supplied, left-hand one is active, right-hand one is the emergency standby one.
One of the two Cummins engines.
The other engine
Voith gearbox
Looking down Loch Leven to Loch Linnhe, this is tidal and mixed fresh/salt water.
Highland Goat, probably wild, very shy. had to take quite a long telephoto shot to get this
Another view down Loch Leven
Inside the slate quarry at Ballaculish
Peter
