Reality of the BRS dream
Page 40
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THE DREAM of a nationalised transport industry, integrated and organised along military lines, was a long-cherished one, but it took until a Labour Government was elected in 1945 before that dream became reality. A Pictorial History of BRS (Frederick Warne, £8.95) by Nick Baldwin tells the story of the road haulage nationalisation, and its subsequent gradual disintegration, from formation to final privatisation this year.
The story begins with voluntary and compulsory acquisition of hundreds of firms by the Road Haulage Executive, and of the stalwart efforts made to turn so many small and diverse units into one cohesive organisation. Vehicle types had to be standardised wherever possible, and there was the far from easy matter of coming to terms with entrepreneurs who felt uncomfortable as employees of the state.
Baldwin tells of the reluctant BRS man who threw his depot keys into a pond when the local RHE man turned up, and of the Scot who refused to touch the compensation money he was paid, and left it to his executor to deal with after his death.
Early experience told the RHE that it needed to streamline its heavily layered management system, and other early hopes began to disappear when railway unions — so, what else is new — resisted attempts to amalgamate the British Rail and BRS parcels services.
Denationalisation, which did not go as far as Churchill's Conservative Government wanted, finally laid to rest any of the earlier dreams, and the whole process of the late Forties was thrown into reverse. Nonetheless, BRS remained, was restructured on product lines, organised the development of its own Bristol heavy haulage vehicles, and thrived in spite of the sacrifices it had to make in face of massive capital funds flowing into BR.
For a time, Pickfords and what is now Containervvay and Roadferry, were part of BRS, and today are still sister NFC companies. The story of these, and an abundant supply of photographs of BRS vehicles, ancient and modern, help set a fascinating era of the haulage industry into perspective. A.L.M.
Frederick Warne (Publishers) Ltd, 40 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3HE