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1. The Republic of Ireland

John Darker takes a look at the road transport scene and some problems demanding attention

A VISIT to the Republic of Ireland highlighted three pressing transport problems which, though not new in themselves, have taken on particular importance now that the Republic is a member of the EEC. I found that, while aspects of EEC legislation and foreign haulage are causing concern, and worker participation in management is surprisingly far advanced in some transport areas, Irish road transport seems dominated by these three issues : • What to do about CIE, the State transport colossus.

• The need for a radical reform of the restrictive road transport licensing system.

• The contribution of labour relations developments to solving current economic problems.

Transport and distribution efficiency is vitally necessary for any country, especially for -one needing to export and even more particularly for one like Ireland which suffers a major imbalance in trade with other countries, importing much that it could make at home and exporting too little of its own distinctive products.

The massive problem faced by the Trish Government of keeping the country afloat during a world trading slump has tended to divert attention from the transport problems.

Ireland's pressure groups are not so well established as Britain's and its transport associations do not exert the saine leverage as the RHA and ETA. The FTA function falls in part on the Confederation of Irish Industry which serves the large traders interest. The Irish Road Haulage Associa tion, with a membershi about 600 firms — 70 per operating only one vehic results from a recent menE the Licensed Haulage As tion (over 400 members) the Road Transport As tion.

Although the Irish RH now sending an exec member — an architect new Association, Mr Dooly — to Brussels for transport discussions, Association cannot affor provide transit guarantee Ireland's international hau carnets are issued by a co site body Lastas Eii (RHA), sponsored by Government, CIE and °OD terested bodies.

While the CIE (of N more anon) and labour tions are prominent tran topics in Ireland I was keen to discover some about the position that Jr was likely to take up in cussions with the EEC z drivers' hours, tachogr etc, and the question of a liberal domestic tran policy, which has been I talked to two senior cials of the Ministry of T port and Power but lei that several other Mini: are involved.

However, I was able to i view Mr Tim Dooly who Brussels regularly and als presents the Irish Govern in discussions with the l pean Conference of Tran Ministers.

The Irish Road Ha, Association, operating fro Burrin Street, Carlow, drawn to my attention Irish Confederation of I The British RI-IA gave me Le a different address, that ..astas Eireann (RHA), TTA, Cores Tracktala, Landsme House, Dublin, 4. This er body is an amalgam of rests, including the Governat, for it issues carnets and a supervising role in interional transport by road, a brief, in EEC discussions, pur questions such as the at-hour driving day and hographs fall to be negoed by the Department of ployment. Axle weights are province of the Local remment Ministry, which IId also be involved with stions of vehicle dimenis, drivers' licensing, and d traffic laws. Questions ching on training courses drivers and new entrants the profession of road haulcould involve the Ministry Education. Anything involvfinance would certainly ig in the Ministry of ance — top dog of all Minis I was told — though no wanted to predict the rela! strength of the other iistries a practice, when a number Ministries are involved, a resentative committee of dais is set up and the in?sts which are regarded as amount make most of the fling.

:ome clues as to the devment of new transport icies in Ireland can be deed from speeches of the lister of Transport and ver, Mr Peter Barry. He its to eliminate wasteful I inefficient use of road lsport resources, particuy by allowing professional riers to be free to offer cornhensive services in substi for those provided by a-account vehicles not rays well utilised.

:ome liberal measures have ?.ady been enacted. The Id Transport Act, 1971, roved area/commodity rections from all "existing rier " merchandise licences increased from 100 or so more than 840 the number licensed hauliers authorised undertake State-wide car;e of all classes of merchan2. It also repealed restrictive ndard lorry weight provias which had previously re gulated the vehicle capacity of licensed hauliers. However, the Minister clearly wants to protect existing professional hauliers from excessive competition from newcomers.

He sees the merit of taking action now rather than in a boom period when the removal of barriers might encourage excessive expansion. Unfortunately, " now " is loosely defined in Ireland ; in a speech to the Chartered Institute of Transport at Cork in December, 1974, Mr Barry said the central proposals for a new Transport Bill were approaching finality and he hoped to introduce legislation early in 1975.

In May, 1975, also at Cork, in a speech to Irish road hauHers, Mr Barry said he hoped to introduce amending legislation later this year. He faced, he said, the problem of opening the door a little to newcomers, or making preparations for doing so at a later stage without prejudice to the rights of existing hauliers.

Mr Barry was at pains to stress his awareness that existing licensed hauliers had invested heavily in vehicles and equipment and in some cases had bought themselves into the industry at substantial cost. Incidentally, the going rate for a haulier's licence was said by one of my informants to be in the £3,000 to £5,000 bracket. However, Mr Barry gave the assurance that "the main bias of liberalisation will be for existing licensed hauliers and that there is no question of a free-for-all being thrust on the transport industry out of the blue."

The domestic road transport law is somewhat similar to that obtaining in the UK before the 1968 Transport Act brought in operators' licensing and liquidated "proof of need" criteria for new or extended facilities.

There are no restrictions on the carriage of goods by road which are the property of the owner of the transporting vehicle. Professional hauliers, however, are considerably restricted and many complaints are voiced from hauliers and their customers about the tight licensing controls.

Exempted areas, where no licensing obtains, permit carriage for hire or reward within 15 miles of the post offices in Dublin and Cork (10 miles for Limerick, Waterford and Galway). Anyone can carry turf for any distance and there are defined freedoms for the movement of agricultural goods, milk from creamery to cream separating station, etc.

A particularly onerous burden, now being tested in court actions, concerns individuals or firms hiring or leasing a vehicle. If a manufacturer leases a vehicle and carries his own goods in it this is regarded as carrying for hire or reward. Section 2 (1) of the Road Transport Act 1956 says plainly that where a vehicle is hired (except under a hire purchase agreement) and during the period of hire is used for the carriage of merchandise, "the hirer of the vehicle shall be deemed to be carrying on a merchandise road transport business and to be carrying the merchandise in the course of that business."

Exceptions permit the temporary use of a vehicle hired by the registered owner of a similar vehicle and in substitution thereof in defined circumstances.

Hire risks

In court decisions the hirers of vehicles have had cases brought against them dismissed, but the operator of a hired vehicle is still considered to be at risk. The archaic section of the 1956 Act has, I gather, survived because of the fear that a relaxation on the point could have nullified much of the 1933 and subsequent legislation.

On the International front the Minister has made known his support in principle for applications from Irish residents for a licence to carry merchandise to be exported from or imported to points in the State. Such a licence would permit only the transport of goods caned in a refrigerated container fitted to or drawn by a lorry which is itself carried on a vehicle ferry with the container on all sea crossings Haulage from point to point within the State would not be permitted.

Frontier traffic

A licence is needed to import temporarily any commercial vehicle whether laden or unladen. Licences are freely available for laden vehicles of ownaccount operators, but they are not normally granted for hire or reward operators unless collection or delivery is within 15 miles of Dublin or Cork or the movement is within a defined category—special vehicle, removals, frozen meat, etc.

The delicate political situation vis-a-vis Ulster, combined with EEC directives requiring licences to be issued for carriage from a member State into the frontier zone of an adjacent member State extending 25 km from their common frontier and vice versa, raises complex issues.

Certain categories of goods are freed from licensing requirements in accordance with EEC Council Directive of July 23 1962. This applies to hire and reward and to own-account vehicles involved in frontier traffic in zones within 25 km on each side of a frontier. Vehicles using the Rosslare/Le Havre ferry are covered by this directive, but traffic between Ireland and the mainland of Britain is not. The foregoing—greatly abbreviated—rules do not permit cabotage—point to point haulage—within the State.

Mr Tim Dooly, responsible for EEC liaison for the Irish Road Haulage Association, runs David Desmond International Freight Ltd, of Cork, and he has followed the example of astute British road hauliers by employing as his shipping manager (Tony O'Driscoll) an experienced forwarding agent. The company operates regular road services to Germany and Italy.

Mr Dooly said he 1s awaiting the EEC's Interim Report which will define the latest thinking on harmonisation — taxes, driving licences, gross weights and dimensions, etc. He expected Britain and Denmark to oppose some aspects but that Irish road hauliers would vote for 38-tonners. "We do not accept the arguments about road damage put forward by the environment people."

As to the maximum vehicle length, he saw the case for longer vehicles with roomier sleeper cabs, but expected a lot of opposition to length changes.

Enforcement of gross vehicle weights troubled Mr Dooly. "In Ireland, we have instances of lorries loaded to 44 tons. The locals do it and there is much overloading across the frontier in the North. The police there are too busy to prevent this."

Tachographs

The introduction of an eighthour driving limitation is not objected to for international traffic, but Mr Dooly sees this as most damaging if applied domestically. Ireland has always retained the 11-hour day so it is understandable that the prospect of eight hours' driving within Ireland is unwelcome. A single driver can get to Dublin, Limerick or Galway and return, but a trip to Donegal would involve an additional driver, or changeover collaboration, not easily arranged when so many operators are running a single vehicle.

If tachographs are made compulsory Irish trade unions are likely to resist this, says Mr Dooly. "We have tachos in our vehicles and find them useful. I see them as giving us valuable statistics, not as a means of checking on the drivers."

I learned that the £40 for 40 hours drivers' pay did not spread to Ireland, though Irish drivers running across Britain, or working reciprocally British hauliers, were aware the move. Mr Dooly thou good Irish drivers earned . to £50 a week and internatio drivers could look for E10 £20 fringe benefits on top their normal earnings.

The Republic is now ric tiating bilateral agreements a deal with France should completed by the end of IS The other EEC countries follow and Mr Dooly lool forward to the day when Ministry of Transport E Power would be issuing pern to Irish international operat Although Mr Dooly N clearly reluctant to make spl fic complaints he hinted stro ly that vehicles came do from Northern Ireland to Cork area in search of b; traffic, either for North Ireland or for England. ' competition was seen as uni because Northern Ireland-ba vehicles apparently pay a less in taxes than do I/ hauliers. Hence the ease IA which rates could be cut.

Irish meat transport opt tors by no means have a m opoly of meat haulage to Continent, said Mr Dooly. thought there should be strie control of permit issues by Ministry of Transport in D lin. Another factor for the w use of returning Continei vehicles was the reluctance Irish manufacturers to realistic haulage rates.

What do members of Irish RHA think of their °I account colleagues in Irelat Mr Dooly thought this side the industry was complet disorganised. They got sc assistance from the Confect( tion of Irish Industry, but w was needed was a live b( like—or a separate divisior —the Freight Transport As iation.

French connection

Professional haulage fir operating from three to vehicles are growing in Irela if Mr Dooly's impressions correct. He compared Ira With France where as a di gate to the European Transc Ministers' Conference he been told the typical fleet < French haulier was on aver. only 2/ vehicles. rhrough English eyes it )ears that Ireland would re greatly enhanced its nsport efficiency had its islation been updated on the of our 1968 Transport t. In fact, of course, the two trades' licensing systems are • different. I asked Mr oly whether his Association considered linking up with British RHA and he replied t the diverse licensing rules couraged this. "I would prethat we liaise with the Brit, and others, through the J," he told me.

;ome elements of quality 'trot, with stricter mainten!e requirements and vehicle ting stations, are likely to part of Ireland's road trans • picture in any event. Mr oly sees fair rates for haul; as providing the best axis to encourage satisfacy fleet maintenance, and ;h hauliers insist on the ver to influence rate levels the top and bottom of the :ing bracket. Price cutting mathema to Mr Dooly; conlied rates, on the German del, do not at all frighten 1.

f testing stations had to be up in Ireland he suggested t two could serve the whole mtry from locations Within miles of Dublin and Cork. ie Government's very closet on this possibility" he said. ley don't say what they re in mind."

Ir Dooly sees a big role for Association in enforcing ly professional standards of !ration and maintenance. .ry haulier should be a mem, he feels, as this would help Association to shoulder ch of the enforcement bur "In Germany, the Road alage Association has power discipline member firms. ;es are referred to the Govment, who back up the ;ociation."

'he Irish Road Hauliers have en counsel's opinion on the ie of vehicle leasing and y are advised that it is legal the licence holder to lease. .doubt this issue will soon clarified.

'D final thoughts from Tim ply. He would like to see the h Minister of Transport h greater powers, and he ;ympathetic to the developit of owner-driver schemes. you employ an owner-driver a job-price basis he will rk that bit harder. He won't sit around when extra effort on his part can net him another £40 or E50 revenue a day."

There is plenty of vitality on the part of operators, and some distribution techniques I saw, such as a keg-loading appliance using a vacuum lifting rig to load 30 Guinness kegs at a time, are as advanced as anything we can boast in Britain. A closer relationship of British and Irish transport and distribution people would be beneficial to both sides.

The CIE colossus

Straddling the Irish transport scene is Coras Iompair Eireann. To understand the significance of CIE in the Irish economy it is perhaps sufficient to point out that it employs some 20,000 people with a wages budget in 1974 of E65rn. Wages and salaries amounted to 63 per cent of total expenditure over the past three years. In Britain, the National Freight Corporation, the largest whale in the road haulage sea, employs less than 50,000 people, but if its establishment was in line with CIE's—having regard to the difference in population — the NFC would employ perhaps half a million people.

CIE, of course, runs the State-owned Irish Railways and a large proportion of the country's bus and coach services, and its road freight services are relatively insignificant but it remains a colossus in a small, not very rich, country.

You do not have to be in Ireland for many hours before learning of the 120,000 unemployed, a figure that could well double or treble in the next year or two if the world's trade continues to sag. , I talked to a fellow passenger on a Tipperary station platform and was told that many tiny CIE rail stations had a staff of 12 men.

CIE in 1975 is expected to have some £17m in subsidy from the Irish Government. This figure was given by Dr Liam St John Devlin, CIE chairman, when he spoke to a Chartered Institute a Transport meeting at Limerick in February. An unofficial estimate suggests that 1975's subsidy may rise to £25m a year. It needs no imagination to reflect on the consequences of this order of deficit finance to the staff, of all grades. The £15,000 a year general manager of CIE, Mr John Byrne, plans to leave the organisation at the end of 1975. I have little doubt that many of his colleagues in management, and in other grades, would be overjoyed at the prospect of leaving such a loss-making organisation if there was any hope of comparably paid employment offering equal security.

CIE returns some revenues to the State in the form of PAYE and other forms of taxation, amounting to £9.7m in 1973/74. It produces substantial "outputs" in transport terms. For example, in 1974 its road passenger operations involved 308m passenger journeys were only 121m, but rail passenger miles were around 550m miles, doubtless involving longer journeys for the most part. Rail freight carryings were 3.6m tons (350m ton/ miles). Dr Devlin was unable to give the comparable road freight figures for CIE and independent hauliers.

It is entirely natural that CIE's management should he conscious of the major role played by the organisation in the life of Ireland as well as its total dependence upon the State in meeting the — perhaps unavoidable — deficits. Dr Devlin referred in his speech to the wide geographical spread of employment provided by CIE and to the economic significance of the money put into the community by its employees. "The CIE," he said, "is an enterprise which is totally dependent on the community. One must include the staff of CIE as well as those who avail of its services." It recalls Mr Frank Cousins's comment on "free for all" wages policy. "Remember, he said, "we're part of the all.' " Just as, in Britain, the old British Transport Commission could reasonably claim to have followed government "'remits" both vague and conflicting, so, in Ireland, CIE can blame Transport Acts in 1927, 1932, 1933, 1958 and 1964 for yielding terms of reference which hardly encouraged a purely commercial approach.

Before 1933 — CIE was set up in 1950 — railways companies were able to operate road passenger and road freight services under a licensing system which effectively governed the operation and future development of such services. It was expected that the rail and road organisations, based on 26 railway companies' welded together as a conglomerate, would become a new monopoly, competition in transport being regarded as necessary neither for efficiency nor for its own sake. But the legislation imposed responsibilities to provide the transport needs of the community.

More recent Acts have stressed the responsibility of the board of CIE to encourage national economic development in the provision of transport services. As with the British Transport Commission, vague and not necessarily complementary objectives have conspired to make CIE's current task more formidable than it need have been.

Objectives

CIE has recently formulated a new corporate policy in the following terms : El To provide reasonable, efficient and economic transport services within the capacity of the undertaking's financial and human resources, with a commitment to the railway and road passenger modes.

O To develop these modes in accordance with a new long term strategy and to initiate new concepts in the organisation and operation of urban transport services.

0 In acknowledging the development of the private sector public transport services, it is the aim of the board to co-operate, where feasible, with these services with a view to establishing a transport infrastructure which will facilitate the economic development of Ireland.

CI To contain the operating deficit on CIE transport services within a specified limit.

To secure a progressive improvement in wages and living standards of staff through improved productivity.

It is one thing to set down a corporate policy as a " holding " operation and quite another to bring a loss-making body into early profitability. CIE's rail losses alone have risen from £6.7m in 1971/72 to an expected £16.7m in 1975. As with British Rail, in the days of its small freight section, sundries traffic (cwt to 5 tons) incurs a great loss.

Private sector competition creams off the major traffic flows between conurbations, leaving CIE — or an alternative — to service the remote parts of the community. The Irish Government, largely a farmers' government, could not leave vast rural areas unprovided with smalls freight services, nor would it be feasible to place these on a strictly cernmercial footing.

Turning to road freight services operated by CIE, this is an area activity directly competing with the private sector in terms of service and price. Losses have been insignificant by comparison with rail ; in 1971/72 there was a loss of £134,000 but this year's prediction — made some months ago — was for a profit of E7,000. The down-turn in trade will make the target hard to achieve.

Road freight subsidies are not permitted by Irish law, and even if they were allowed EEC commitments would compel a Government declaration that certain freight services by road were provided as a public service operation. CIE, aware that the Minister for Transport is intending to liberalise road freight at the end of 1975, wants to be assured that the competition allowed will be fair and will regularly be policed through the qualitative and personnel controls imposed by EEC directives.

Cinderella

To strengthen what CIE feels to be a Cinderella business, road freight area management is being re-organised with the appointment of junior managers in charge of the operation and marketing of small groups of vehicles. These freight managers will be fully charged to make profits on the group of vehicles deployed. The target of profit for all CIE freight services by road has been fixed at the — somewhat modest — figure of £150,000, after allowing for overheads, in 1977.

CIE is involved with the same type of urban congestion and land-use problems as British passenger and freight operators. Ultimately, they see themselves as a contractor providing bus transport in the five main conurbations (Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway) with subsidies paid either by central or local government.

Because the average speed of Dublin city buses has fallen annually — despite some handsomely wide, six-lane roads such as O'Connell Street — radio control is used on all cross-city routes. Radio frequencies are limited so last year CIE decided to experiment with a computer-controlled automatic system enabling a central operator to read the position of an equipped vehicle at any particular time. Another development, all too familiar on this side of the Irish sea, is the employment of consultants to report on an overall rapid transit system for the urban and suburban area of Dublin.

Internal communications are getting a lot of attention in Ireland and CIE arranged no fewer than 300 separate meetings in telling employees about its Rail Development Plan, which includes unit trains for fertilisers and cement and a version of the Freightliner. Despite the effort employed to get the details to the staff it is said that only 60 per cent of those who needed to know were talked to !

The remedy for the spontaneous interpretation by the media of events involving CIE is seen as the development in all managers, supervisors and foremen, of corporate und standing and corporate co mitment. Every employee mi become a public relations niA not to explain away faults omissions but in the cont.( of communicating the reality When I talked to Mr Kev Daly, CIE's international m keting manager, he made secret of the effect on CIE the decline in meat traffic the Continent. "We've had pull our horns in a bit," he tc me. "Meat movements ha greatly fallen off though soi is moving to the Interventic cold stores in various loc' ties, including a refrigeral ship off the Irish coast."

CIE is involved with rolland container traffic on t "land bridge to Britain, traffic is consigned to Eurc and indeed worldwide, often Irish ships. There is a ck liaison with British Rail a B+I shipping services. Cus mer preference may indict the employment of a particu shipping line and CIE tries negotiate major package des extending over time, to harn a major customer's traffic.

Mr Daly said that unemplt ment in Ireland had increas from 80,000 to 120,000 in 1 past 18 months ; this in a to work force of around one nlion. It was making the tra unions very restive and it plained the recent port bans the import of cars and finish lorries. The unions wanted much vehicle assembly work be undertaken as possible Ireland.

30 Unions

As area manager at Limeri before taking up his prest job Mr Daly had to deal w about 30 trade unions and ti greatly added to the co plexity of his job. On t white-collar side there was 1( difficulty since 90 p at. cent the staff were members of t Transport Salaried Staff As ciation, but with general wi kers, particularly, negotiati productivity improvemer was very difficult. Manag: had to learn to live with tl proliferation of unions and "play straight down the m die" if particular trade unio tried to out-bid the field.

Mr Daly thought the Briti labour relations situation w closely mirrored in Ireland, t he felt Irish trade unions WE rather less militant. Tra unionists were intensely lo) to their organisations and ti discouraged amalgamations.

Learning that CIE had a [perience with worker paration in the last decade I d Mr Daly how useful he found this, in practice. .haps 90 per cent of the uct of joint consultation is 3," he said, "but 10 per is pearls of great price." vas interested to learn that in common with other organisations in Ireland, nsciously working towards idea of worker-directors. is in response to Govern; encouragement and is, of se, in line with EEC poliUltimately, it is envisaged CIE might have two or worker-directors.

; a useful precursor to this lopment CIE 'has what is vn as the Top Consultative cil when CIE meets the Congress of Trade Unions y three months. At these iings a paper is presented he general manager definthe policy of CIE in [led areas of the business, a comprehensive review 3rformance achieved in remonths.

iis movement towards paration is helping to asso! workers of all grades the decision-making pro?s. "Today," said Mr Daly, worker kicks if he's given int order with no explanaWhen a manager has to ifficult or unpopular things fill meet a tough response • fails to advance the facts .ng him to follow a particuourse of action."

tomers' view

hat do customers think of ? Mr Desmond Byrne, tant traffic manager of ur Guinness, whose 60brewery site well repays a , feels that the organ isatries to do too much and Id specialise on what it do well, leaving others to atake certain functions. company, whose site is close to the main station ublin, makes much use of freight for long-distance ements. Traffic is put on as late as 9pm at night and vailable for collection at main station in Ireland the next morning. This iot be faulted in terms of d, but Mr Byrne was itful how flexible CIE Id be if the brewery wan ted to change the cycle times markedly.

Antigen International Ltd, of Roscrae, Tipperary, a medium-sized company manu facturing pharmaceuticals which are exported extensively worldwide, had made much use of CIE an package deal terms for some years. It could get pretty reliable delivery services throughout the country, including an express facility for urgently needed goods, at a reasonable price, though it would have been possible to send goods to Dublin from Roscrae at a lower price, using competitive road transport services. Clearly, firms like Antigen needing to service chemists and veterinary surgeons throughout the country would be subjected to much additional expense if there were no CIE.

In Dublin I learned of interesting pointers to the trend towards greater involvement of workers in decision-making. Both were in large organisations.

A serious strike at the Guinness brewery last year appears to have prompted a recent incompany seminar, attended by 130 people, which ran from 9am to 7pm with contributions from participants, including the managing director, Mk A. J. R. Pursell.

The seminar was under the title "Greater Involvement at JG" (St James's Gate, the brewery hq). It was by way of being an exploratory meeting ; the management made known their intentions to put forward some formal proposals on staff involvement by the end of July.

A. Guinness Son and Co (Dublin) Ltd, through its md, said the company was already committed to four goals : 1, greater involvement on a joint basis ; 2, greater satisfaction and responsibility at the workplace ; 3, fair distribution of net productivity gains between all parties who contribute to the organisation ; and 4, inter-related pay and benefit structures based on relativities which are accepted as fair.

The views. expressed frankly at this seminar were not specific in terms of changes in organisational patterns but most speakers appeared to feel that a new deal was necessary, though there were cautions discouraging the idea that everyone's job could be made interesting and fulfilling overnight.

Works council

B+I — the State-owned shipping line — established a works council at its Dublin premises in 1973. Here some 1,400 people are employed. This development owes something to damaging strikes hurting the company ; last year strikes and stoppages — not all of them in Ireland — cost the company C462,000. Copies of the works council Bulletin I have read reveal the scope of discussions, affecting all grades of staff including the road haulage men employed. Often,, correspondence between the council and the personnel manager reveals the differ ences between the "sides."

The B+I works council has a full-time chairman (Mr T. Muldowney) and its own premises and it enjoys substantial support from management.

As an example of how difficut labour relations are in Ireland, the Bulletin reveals that eight vacancies in the StoresComplex recently attracted no fewer than 91 applications. It appears to be the practice for job vacancies to be regarded as the pre-ordained right of relatives of existing employees. The unsuccessful in the closeknit Irish community make no secret of their resentment at missing out when vacancies occur.

Management's response to this situation is to urge the works council to take part in the selection of new recruits — a challenge the works council, wrongly in my view, ducked.

The Dublin works council has visited Liverpool to meet the B+I council there as well as the dockers who service the B+I complex there. B+I would like to have its own staff to man its Liverpool terminal, but this, I gather, is not acceptable to Liverpool dockers.

Ireland may soon have to set up inland container depots with built-in customs facilities. It is questions of this kind, as opposed to the easy options of welfare benefits, etc, which will test the capacity of the B+I works council to make joint management — for that is being worked towards — a reality. The works council has been left in no doubt by the management that some tricky and unpopular decisions cannot be talked around, but must be faced. MACK TRUCKS has announced its intention of importing heavy trucks into the United Kingdom and is due to. reveal its British distributor early next month, but Macks have 'already been operating in Ireland for some long time and are assembled by a subsidiary of the Roadstone company at Saggart in County Dublin.

Last week the Irish company, Mack Distributors Ireland Limited, arranged for me to try one of their demonstrators in and around Dublin and although this will not necessarily be the model imported into Britain, it provided an interesting taste of a marque which has long had a worldwide reputation for ruggedness and reliability.

The model I tried, bath laden and unladen, was a 4 x 2 tractive unit, the Model F785 RT and I found it to be an operator's rather than a driver's truck in most respects. The potential performance, especially in terms of engine torque and 'payload capacity, was very impressive but compared with the latest trucks from European manufacturers the cab design was very dated.

Mack type numbers are, like those of Fodens, lengthy but logical. The engine in the test truck, for example, was ENDTB 675: EN for engine, D for diesel, T for turbocharged and the B to denote that the optional exhaust brake was fitted.

The engine was the most impressive part of the Mack, not so much in terms of sheer bhp but in the area of maximum torque. The engine characteristics were very similar to •the "maxi couple" unit in the Berliet TR 280, or the Berliet was similar Ito the Mack depending upon your country of origin. The concept of "maxi torque" and who thought of it first has evidently been a bone of contention between the two companies. The power of the Mack engine was 177kW (237bhp) at 2,10Orpm to the SAE rating with the excellent maximum torque of 1228Nm (9061bft) being produced at 1,200rpm.

The layout of the engine was fairly conventional being a turbocharged in-line six of 11 litres (675cuin) capacity. One unusual feature, however, was the use of a sheet metal pressing for the inlet manifold instead of the more usual casting. Although this idea is certainly not unknown (Bedford uses it, for example) it is unfamiliar in tc engines.

Unfamiliar layout

The transmission was certainly out of the ordinary for an . on-road type of heavy truck, with the provision of two gear levers (shades of Foden again!). One gear lever controls the "normal" sequence of ratios while the other selects crawler, reverse or "drive." The main gearbox is used on the highway when the auxiliary lever is at "drive." One of the peculiarities of this layout is that it is theoretically possible to go as fast in reverse as forwards! The main gearbox is a constant-mesh unit to Mack's own (14 while the rear axle is ratt 11 tons when using 22401 the ton instead of 'the At can "short" tons.

Vintage cab

The Mack was rather s by its dated. cab. The la inside reminded me in n ways of the Atkinson oi cent memory before the ME with Seddon resulted in 400 cab. That, in fact, rz sum's up the American ca being a sound enough dE but 10. years out of date.

It was one of the most cult trucks to get in and of that I have ever c across, hardly any assist being provided in the wa steps or nave plates. The senger side fares rather IN (a hangover from the 1hd sions) as three rudimen steps are provided. Once is the cab I was impressed the convenient location of minor controls such as and wiper switches on a to the left of the driver, ess impressed with the pired 'positioning of the meats. An odd point was se of a speedometer call in km/h only.

divided windscreen •was led rather like the Volvo, i contrast to the Swedish the glass is curved, at liars. The same reason of mics in replacement was for this feature, Tinted .creen glass is standard ication for Mack trucks. wipers are air operated le wiper arms themselves the washer nozzles.

this occasion I had the ;e to try -the truck in the laden and unladen dons. Picking up the /Crane Fruehauf ,combii just outside Dublin I to the Roadstone quarry load of gravel to bring miss weight up to around an unladen truck I ht it rode very well Igh it did tend to leap a fair bit on the rougher ins of road, but this im d considerably when , when the ride was good. I seen from the side the has unusual proportions, rst to eyes used to Eurotrucks, with a combine)f a very long wheelbase 73m (12ft 3in) and an 4 non-existent front over technique for starting rest was to select "drive" e auxiliary lever and then Kr first gear on the main Ind so on. If reverse was !d this was selected by uxiliary lever, leaving the five speeds to 'be used if red in the opposite direcalthough this is not a :-recommended practice.

e gearbox itself had a short travel across the which made for very t gearchanging if the .e revs were judged corr. The upper four ratios straightforward to select, first gear (not crawler) definitely a two-handed [he clutch on the demonr was impossibly heavy. .ver, I was assured that was not common to the tking was safe and sure ugh the system was rather "on" or "off" with very little progression in the pedal action. But if necessary the Mack could certainly stop in a hurry. The exhaust brake could be Switched on to automatic, in which case it came on every time the throttle was released—there was no separate foot button as is more usual. The design of the exhaust brake was such that the unit did not operate if the engine revs were allowed to drop too much. In other words when descending a hall in top gear at 1,100rpm the exhaust brake would not operate, compelling the driver to change down to increase the revs if he wanted to use the retarder. It worked well in 'practice but it made a tinny noise when doing so.

The steering was accurate enough but was very low geared which meant that a lot of driver effort was required on corners. On some of the twisty roads around Dublin this was a "serious handicap but against this the straightline precision was very good.

The Mack was an unusual truck in ninny ways, and re minded me of several other trucks in different details. The interior layou:t is reminiscent of the old Atkinson, the split screen reminds one of the Volvo, the narrow three-spoke steering wheel of the Scania, the engine characteristics of the big !Bernet, and so on.

One big advantage to the operator of the truck I drove would be its low kerb weight and hence higher payload potential. With a dry weight of 5i tons for the short cab and 6 tons for the sleeper the Mack is one of the lightest trucks around with such a performance potential. The engine has an impressive torque rating but I would still query the viability of specifying a five-speed gearbox for a 32-tanner. With the orawler it is nominally a six-speed but for normal road use not many people are going to use a 14.1 to I ratio.

The Mack has an impressive performance and a useful kerb weight but to Western European eyes its cab seems dated; as I commented earlier, this F785RT seems much more an operator's than a driver's vehicle.