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Get on the right track
Page 3
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People say the funniest of things, Take Lord (Tony] Berkeley, chairman of the Railfreight Group, for example.
In the latest edition of the REG News, he attacks the UK Government for not doing enough to dismantle state rail monopolies in the rest of Europe. To our funtutoredl eyes, surely it's those 'state monopolies' and assorted local and national Government subsidies that keep rail freight going across Europe in the face of cut-price road haulage. Moreover, in the same publication, it also says the reliability of UK rail freight services are "...being threatened by the expansion tactics of the passenger service operators-. This suggests to CM that the problem lies a lot closer to home...
Indeed, we can't help but feel that whenever the rail freight sector attempts to justify its performance, it often prefers to look out of the window — rather than into the mirror However, we'd like to suggest that if rail freight operators want to do better, they might try working closer with road hauliers. The partnership between Bulmers Logistics and EWS (see page 241 shows what happens when two rivals work together Bulmers didn't want to tie up its antics on unproductive long-haul work. EVVS wanted a reliable, single-source operator to provide the short-distance final leg of the journey from its rail heads to the customers' premises. Voila! A marriage made in accountants' heaven. And operators fuming at having trucks sat idle at Southampton should note what EWS's account manager, Colin Sharp, says about how quickly you can get a box out of the docks... on a train. It's time to bin the 'road or rail: argument. In the 21st century, it's road and rail. Thus, we'd recommend the REG consider Harold Arlen's
classic lyrics: -You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, [and]
Latch on to the affirmative," But above aU, realise who your real friends are.
Brian Weatherley