B.R. Oppose Football Trips
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OBJECTIONS by British Railways to 42 applications by independent operators to run football excursions to additional destinations were heard in Manchester, last week. Special permission was given to run trips, arrangements for which had already been made, to Blackburn last Saturday in connection with a Manchester City club match, but the decision on licences for Sheffield. Leeds, Bury and Blackburn was reserved.
Mr. H. Clarke, for the Passenger Vehicle Operators' Association, said that the Licensing Authority was being asked to include in the companies' licences permission to run to destinations in connection with fixtures for second-division teams, as well as firstdivision teams.
This was excursion traffic which had always been considered part of the function of excursion operators. They provid-d booked seats both ways and a service direct to the ground. There were four destinations to which the railways objected—Bury, Leeds, Sheffield and Blackburn—but, said Mr. Clarke, it was nonsensical that twothirds of the operators in Manchester should be licensed to operate for the benefit of second-division matches and the others should not.
Mr. James Booth, for the Railway Executive, said that Mr. Clarke had emphasized that there were already operators authorized to go to Bury, Leeds, Sheffield and Blackburn, and had thought that, for that reason, the railway objection was weakened. The railways could not object to the activities of those operators who were already authorized, Mr. Booth pointed out, but they opposed those destinations to which they considered they had a right to object on merit. The railways had objected only to those applications in reply to which they could conscientiously say that the facilities already offered to the public were adequate.