Curious Incident
Page 49
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-" Is there any point to which you would wish ' to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
".The dog did, nothing in thenight-time." "That was the Curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
LAST week, 1 analysed the tendency of the British Transport Commission, in their seventh' annual report, to hint at better times in the future as a means for distracting public attention from the more immediate and more discouraging past. What Sherlock Holmes would have called an even more curious attitude towards the future is shown in the fourth report of the Road Haulage Disposal Board. To a reader knowing nothing of the subject, the latest report might almost be the last.
The present intention is to offer for public tender in October the shares of B.R.S. (Parcels). Ltd., a company set up on January 1, and operating over 4,000 vehicles from some 115 depots. According to the Board's report, this is the only outstanding item for which there are definite plans. The sole remaining reference to the future concerns the 136 units, comprising 5,571 vehicles, in list S.4, for which there were no bids, or no acceptable bids. "The aim will be," says the report, "to announce decisions in June," but the ambiguity of this sentence is not helped by the fact that it was almost July before the report even saw the light of day.
Neither the Board, nor apparently the Commission, can say how many vehicles remain unsold. In an attempt to arrive at a figure, the report begins with the 32,500 vehicles !eft after subtracting from the 36,000 vehicles operated by British Road Services at the time of the passing of the Transport Act. 1953, the 3,500 that the Commission are allowed to retain. Results of lists 10 and 11 are not given in the report. If they are left out of account, 22,931 vehicles have been offered and 15,008 sold. However, 501 vehicles among those (Wend have been transferred to other categories, so that the net total offered is reduced to 22,430, of which presumably 7,422 had not been sold before publication of lists 10 and I I.
Indifferent Results
It is possible to estimate fairly accurately how this 'total of unsold vehicles is made up. There are the 5,571 vehicles left from list SA, and the single unit of 498 meat vehicles, accounting for 6,069. Lists 10 and 11 contained 589 vehicles previously offered. Among the total offered but not sold are 25 heavy haulage vehicles, four furniture vans, a tanker, and 472 vehicles in Scotland. If the meat unit is sold, and the results of list 11 are as good as list 10, the total residue may be less than 6,000, for which the indifferent results of list S.4 were almost entirely responsible.
• Including the units in lists 10 and 11, but subtracting the 501 vehicles transferred, the total number offered• comes to 24,068, leaving approximately 8,400 out of the 32,500 that were originally supposed to be available for disposal. More than 4,000 are in the parcels company; a special arrangement has been agreed for the
disposal of 2,000 vehicles on contract hire; and the Commission are asking the Minister to exempt from disposal some 400 vehicles engaged on collection and delivery work for the railways.
On this count, there should be another 2,000 vehicles still to offer. The Board's report agrees with this figure, but indicates that most of the 2,000 are to be numbered among the legion of the lost. "The figure of some 2,000 which remains," says the report. "cannot at this stage be regarded as more than a balancing figure, and we are told by the Commission that the true figurc of vehicles still available and suitable for offer in trans port units will be well below 2,000. Whatever the final figure may be it is clear that there is no significant further number of un-offered vehicles to be drawn on.
"Not Runners" Two reasons are specified in the report for the Commission's failure to name a definite figure. Some vehicles are "not runners," and in some cases one heavier vehicle has been subsituted for two lighter ones. In spite of these excuses, one would have thought that at any given date the Commission-would be able to say how many vehicles they had to offer. Of their fleet of 25,442 vehicles at the end of 1954, it is known that 2,958 were stored or under repair. Presurnabb. it is also known how many of these were "not runners"
Records must be available of changes of vehicles of unequal weight, so that the effect upon the total fleet can easily be checked at any time. Nor is there any ban against the substitution of one vehicle for another of like weight. If a vehicle is not a " runner," the Commission should buy a new vehicle_ and offer it for disposal instead.
Mystery surrounds the final stages of disposal. Although it is generally assumed that at the end of 1953 the Commission obtained A licences for 36,000 vehicles, I can recall no authoritative statement of the precise figure. During the past 18 months, substitutions and other changes have so obscured the position that. if the report of the Disposal Board is to be believed. the Commission themselves scarcely know how many licensed vehicles they have left.
The uncertainty on this point will not lull the suspicions of some hauliers that there is a loophole in the 1953 Act that will enable the Commission to keep far more licensed vehicles than the generally recognized figure of 3,500. Some time ago it was suggested that there was nothing to prevent the Commission, when they substituted a large for two small vehicles, obtaining an ordinary A licence for the new vehicle and selling the other two as part of a transport unit, with a special A licence.
There is no clear evidence that such a loophole exists, or, if it does, that the Commission are taking advantage of it. But the lack of clarity about the constitution of the fleet still operated by B.R.S. is causing uneasiness. It is a pity the Disposal Board did not take the opportunity of clearing the point up and publishing the explanation in their report. Some light thrown in this direction would have helped to dispel the fancy that the Board are as bewildered as the rest of us, and have tic idea what is going to happen next.