Cost Means No
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thing in Ulster.
ALTHOUGH fares by rail cost less than by road; an increasing number ` of people was choosing road transport, it was -stated'at Belfast, When a -tribunal heard an application froin the Ulster Transpo-rt Authofity for permission to close certain railway lines in Co. Down.
• Mr. A. Morrison, giving evidence for the U.T.A., said that if the closure tobk place, former. rail passengers' would have • to pay higher charges and, although this aspect had cauSed the Authority, some. Concern, it had to be • borne in mind that any change would have to apply to the whole of Ulster . and so. a concession in this case would be, tantamount to an all-round reduction. At present about seven times as many people travelled by road as by rail and there had been great demands for additional services.
The Authority was not trying to kill rail transport, said Mr. Morrison, but practically every road service that had been introduced in the area during the
past decade had been the result of , public desire. The idea that the withdrawal of roadservices might make people travel by train would not work unless road services were stopped completely. lf road services were abandoned, suitable alternative rail facilities could not be, given, but if the rail faci
• lities were withdrawn, convenient road
services could replace them. • With regard to 'a suggestion that excursionists with children might be inconvenienced because of the" impossi. bility.of-carrYing plum's, Mr. Morrison replied that it was proposed to try out, . an experiment in running lorries behind • specific buses.
• In.making the application, Mr. C. A. Nicholson,' K.C.; said that the U.T.A. estimated that 42 passenger and 18 goods vehicles would be required to provide alternative services. The Trans. port Act still left the organization in competition with private operators, who had 16.147 goods vehicles, compared with 734 owned by the U.T.A.