Legitimate Railway Competition
Page 25
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
RAILWAY chiefs often criticize The Commercial Motor for the manner in which it upholds the rights of road transport and for the comments upon railway methods and procedure which frequently appear in its columns.
We would point out, however, that it is our duty as the champion of road transport and all that pertains to it to 'wield a stout cudgel in its defence. We have not attacked the railways in their. own province, we do not challenge the employment of their own road vehicles for the collection and delivery of railway-carried, goods and materials, and frequent references are made to their increasing enterprise in this direction, but we do challenge their right to prescribe limits to the operation of vehicles owned by independent carriers. .
Road transport does not fear legitimate competition; it does not suggest that the railways should not run more than a certain number of trains per day or carry only certain loads. It does, however, object most strongly to such drastic and one-sided proposals as that of limiting to absurdly low loads the legal carrying capacity of railway-road bridges, also to the wholesale protests against every form of road enterprise.
The railways can have no legitimate grievance against road competition until they have put their own house in order. The development of road transport has already acted as a spur to their activities in this direction, but, at least so far as Britain is concerned, they have not yet shown the pluck and initiative displayed in other countries, the railways of which are being faced with the same problem of road competition. Take, for instance, the development of the streamlined oilelectric train. On the Continent (particularly in Holland) and in America, excellent examples of this type of train have been produced. As pointed out in The Oil Engine, Holland recently 'placed an order for 40 oil-engined trains with electrical transmission, of which15 have just been put into service, and these will be employed in general main-line work, with hardly any replacement of steam trains, the idea being to give what is referred to as almost a tramway service over railway tracks.
Such trains can cruise comfortably at 60 m.p.h., and are capable of nearly 100 m.p.h., whilst their acceleration, both , from a standing-start and otherwise, is remarkable. In America, the Union Pacific Railroads recently sent on a 30-day exhibition tour an oil-electric train which was actually inspected by 1,000,000 people, thus showing the enormous interest of the public in this development".
If the British railways can obtain more business by modernizing their equipment, they should certainly take this step, instead of endeavouring to bring road transport down to their own level.