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Road Transport Taunton Westbury

25th March 1949, Page 14
25th March 1949
Page 14
Page 15
Page 14, 25th March 1949 — Road Transport Taunton Westbury
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

To Taunton

Brings Home RA/.WAY the Bacon Says C. S. DUNBAR, M.Inst.T.

THE people of this country were at one thpe the world's greatest bacon-eaters, and in ancierit days every cottager kept his pig. The growth of town populations, consequent on the industrial revolution, led to a demand for the commercial production of bacon, and for nearly two centuries Wiltshire has been the home of the bacon-curing industry It still is, although to-day, Wiltshire bacon need not necessarily originate in the county of that name, as the term implies a special method of cutting and curing rather than a

geographical origin. • The difficult situation with which the Ministry of Food is faced will be appreciated when it is realized that the census of 1935-6 showed a pig population over the whole country of 3,800,000 and, in addition, there were considerable imports of bacon. The 1935 figure excluded pigs produced on farms of small acreage. To-day, many of these small establishments have been brought within the scope of the census figures, yet in June, 1948, the recorded population was only 1,600,000.

To show how the trade has been affected, the wellknown curers, Messrs. Spear Bros. and Clark have a capacity at their Bristol factory for dealing with 600 pigs a week. During the war this was down to 40 or 50 a week, and there was one week when only one was killed. To-day, things are better, but they are still handling only 200-300 a week.

Before the advent of motor vehicles the Wiltshire factories collected pigs in their own district by horsed vehicles, but received the bulk by rail. Transit time is a matter of great importance in the movement of pigs, as a prolonged journey means a marked loss in weight. Under the Transit of Animals Order, the railways must not keep pigs loaded more than 22 hours and arrangements have to be made for feeding them. Unless abnormal weather occurs, so prolonged a transit

is unknown by road. ..

The Order makes it necessary for road carriers to keep.records of livestock movements, and vehicles have to be. cleansed and disinfected after the discharge of each load, unless another load is to be collected from

the same farm. Before the war, some curets bought pigs in the open market and made their own arrangements for transporting them to the factory.

A typical arrangement was that made by Messrs. C. and T. Harris with Falmouth Transport and Lamberburst Motors The former collected pigs from farms in Cornwall and took them into three centres, from which Larnberhurst Motors ran a trunk service to Caine, using double-deck vehicles capable of carrying up to 150 pigs. Deliver5, was made during the night. Such large vehicles were exceptional, but Larnberhurst Motors had several to hold 100, whilst Bladen Dairies, Ltd., of Dorset, which delivered its own pigs to Messrs. Harris, used vehicles carrying 72 animals.

Pigs Badly Treated in Transit ?

Some curers are most concerned at the way pigs are sometimes treated in transit. Overcrowding is bad for them, and to strike them with a whip or stick will likely do damage which will cause an appreciable amount of meat to be lost Goads which give a slight electric shock are on the market, and their wider use would greatly help to save our bacon.

Messrs C. and T. Harris make their own collections of pigs, which arrive at Caine Station by rail. Before the war they had two -vehicles on this work, each carrying about 30 animals, but now, when it is exceptional for any to be railborne, a trailer, which can be hauled by a mechanical. horse, is adequate.

The Ministry of Food is responsible for the allocation of pigs, and the distribution of the live animals to the factories is balanced up with allocations of frozen pork, so that the home product is, as far as possible, evenly distributed throughout the country. Wiltshire receives an appreciable proportion of its requirements front Eastern and South-east England.

Pigs are loaded as far away as Wisbech and Sevenoaks in the early afternoon and reach the factories about 10 p.m the same day. Clearly, such a rapid transit from these distant places would be 'impossible if, rail transport were the only means available. •The use of lorries provides for a direct run and the animals arrive fresher than would be possible by other means • It may perhaps be asked why it is necessary to fetch pigs from the other side of the country; especially in view of the efforts made before the war to develop pig-breeding in the south-western counties. The answer, on good authority, is that the reduction in the pig population has been relatively greater in Devon and Cornwall than in other parts of the country, because, in those counties, the very small producers predominated and their supplies of meal were almost entirely imported —mainly through Bristol. The difficulty that the little man has had in securing. meal supplies has meant that the pigs produced in Devon and Cornwall are now insufficient to supply the factories in those counties, let alone those in Wiltshire.

When it became apparent that there would have to be a great reduction in curing; the Ministry closed down certain plants. Thus, Messrs. Spear Bros. and Clark ceased to kill at Chippenham and Bath, and Mess's. Harris at Chippenham, Highbridge and Kidlington. The Ministry of Food then introduced the sector scheme, which was designed to reduce cross-hauling.

The effect was that the curers could not supply bacon direct to their customers, except those within the sector where the factory was situated: They were allowed to open depots in other sectors, but the bacon passing through such depots did so on the instructions of the Ministry and was not necessarily the curer's own product. The sector scheme has now been abandoned, but curers can still supply only the nominated distributors on the Ministry's Order.

Distributive Depots

As an example of the distributive set-up of the trade, It should be mentioned that before the war, Messrs. Harris had subsidiary companies or branch factories at Redruth, Totnes, Highbridge, Chippenham, Eastleigh, Kidlington, London, Dunmow and Ipswich. To these have now to be added depots at Birmingham, Cardiff, Leicester, Manchester, Rodley (Leeds), Newcastle-onTyne and Glasgow. Messrs. Spear Bros and Clark work" from Bristol, Bath, Chippenham, London, Lenham (Kent), Gloucester, Cardiff, It edruth, Birmingham and CullOmpton.

By 1939, a large proportion of the finished product was going by road direct to the retailers, owing to the quicker service which the road hauliers. were able to provide. This was particularly so from Caine, from which point public carriers were daily taking loads of smalls to Lancashire, Yorkshire, the Midlands, South Wales and the South Coast. H. W. Hawker, Ltd., Bristol, which operated a daily service between Bristol and the whole of Lancashire through its depot at Warrington, secured a permanent place in transport history as the successful respondent in an important appeal to the Tribunal under the 1933 Act.

On the question of "smalls," it should be made clear that a small consignment of bacon may be either a single side weighing cwt. to cwt., or several bales each containing from two to four sides.

Before the war, the position at Chippenham was not so favourable for road transport as at Caine. Messrs. Spear Bros. and Clark always found rail satisfactory both in rate and service for the bacon they dispatched from Chippenham. To-day it is not possible for carriers to arrange regular daily cans at the factories, as the destinations of the factor's products depend entirely on the orders of the Ministry of Food and may change considerably from week to week.

Road transport is, however, still the main means for r.lispatch, but now the traffic is in bulk loads and not split deliveries. With the exception of South Wales, where there is a marked saving in the rail rate because of the circuitous road route, motor vehicles are used even from Bristol, despite the good rail service.

In addition to bacon, the curers send out sausages * and other pig products. The usual arrangement is for sausages, cooked meats and pies to go by passenger train either direct to retailers or to van salesmen.

Road Better Than Rail Before the war, about 60 vehicles were engaged in this work, but a number of vans was withdrawn during the war owing to the shortage of upplies and the need to conserve fuel and tyres. Curiously enough, Harris's find they can deliver sausages to South Wales and the South Coast much better by a direct van service than by rail. This is surprising, particularly in the case of South Wales, where the Severn Tunnel should have given. the railway an incontestable advantage. An important factor, however, is that the vehicles operating this service bring back return loads of tinplate from South Wales for use with the firm's canning trade.

The high cost of sending by passenger train is naturally an important factor in considering means for distribution. For delivery to their van salesmen in Bristol and to customers in the Bath neighbourhood, Messrs. Harris use a refrigerated vehicle. The body contains eutectic tanks which are refrigerated daily by the brine plant at the Caine factory. Refrigerated rail containers operating on the same principle are used for the London sausage and cooked meats traffic.

The fleet at Caine consists of ten vehicles, mainly of 5-ton or 6-ton capacity, and a Scammell mechanical horse. These, in addition to such station work-as may be necessary, handle the retail distribution of bacon and preserves over an area bounded roughly. by.Gloucester, Bristol, Shaftesbury, Southampton, Reading and Oxford. Messrs. Harris's total fleet, including those at branches and those used by the van salesmen, numbers about 100 vehicles. Maintenance is controlled from Caine and many of the vehicles are sent there for major overhauls.

Messrs. Spear Bros. and Clark have about 70 vehicles, of which 16 are located at .Bath; those vehicles range up to 3-ton capacity. At Bath they have 'always standardized on •Fordsoris, whilst at Bristol they favour the Morris-Commercial.


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