AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

Railways Prepare Answer to Road Competition

24th December 1954
Page 21
Page 21, 24th December 1954 — Railways Prepare Answer to Road Competition
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

THE railways' answer to road haulage competition—the Railway Freight Maximum Charges Scheme—has now been drafted, The charges published will often be much higher than those actually agreed with users and it will no longer be easy for hauliers to discover railway rates.

Charges will be based on the cost of a particular job or group of jobs and on what the competitive market will bear. In the past they have been founded on the value of the goods carried and on the national average of costs.

Announcing that the draft of the scheme had been completed, the British Transport Commission said that consultations were being held with important bodies of transport users.

The final draft scheme will be submitted to the Transport Tribunal for a full inquiry, at which all bodies representative "of railway users and other interested parties may be heard.

"Notwithstanding the limited significance of the maximum charges in practice," said the Commission, " the scheme must endeavour to distinguish between them according to the weight and loadability of the consignment, and must provide for the pronounced tapering of cost by distance as well as for the fact that the smallest unit of haulage cost is the wagon.

"The actual railway\ charges must be flexible enough to.. meet the varied and changing eircurnstances‘of traffic, operation and market;, it follows that the statutory maximum charges to be fixed

under the formal scheme . must be high enough to cover the wide ranges of working costs for different traffics and transits, and to allow' ample room for normal commercial agreements."

No Favour for Railways

In the House of Commons, last week, Mr. Boyd-Carpenter refused to take action to encourage consignees of heavy loads to use the railways. He said that permission had to be obtained to carry by road indivisible loads of over 50 tons or more than 20 ft, wide, but in other cases traders should have freedom or choice.

"By means of reorganization, modernization and more flexible freight charges, British Railways are fitting themselves to compete more effectively for these traffics," he added.


comments powered by Disqus