NFC 's road haulage connections will give extra traffic to rail

10th November 1967, Page 90

10th November 1967

Page 90

Page 90, 10th November 1967 — NFC 's road haulage connections will give extra traffic to rail

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Fri HE one thing which is quite certain with transport in this country at 1 the present tune is that no Minister of Transport can afford to leave things where they are." In these firm words Government spokesman Lord Hughes last week justified the forthcoming shake-up of road and rail. He was replying to a debate on transport in the House of Lords, a debate in which the Tories admitted that there were indeed a few good things in Mrs. Castle's plans.

Opening the discussion, for the Government, Lord Shepherd denied that the transfer of suitable traffic from road to rail would do damage to the road transport industry. Road transport would, he believed, continue to grow with the growth of the economy.

The railways would concentrate on providing the wholesale service they were designed to do—the conveyance of bulk materials over long distances, company trains and trunk haul of Freightliners.

The NFC would offer the customer a door-to-door service, a through service by road or by a combination of road and rail as appropriate. The Freightliners would play a great part in this field, and must be used to the maximum advantage.

Policy: put it on rail It was Government policy that as much freight as was economically justified should go by rail, and the NFC 's road haulage connections would help to ensure that Freightliners would get more traffic than would otherwise have been the case, went on Lord Shepherd.

"Proposals in the forthcoming White Paper on Freight will show that the Railways Board will be well rewarded for hauling the Freightliner trains and for their contribution to the development of this concept.

"We shall welcome the co-operation of private hauliers in using Freightliners. But, my Lords, the NFC cannot depend entirely upon them. It must have freedom to provide a through service to ensure maximum efficiency and to provide competition for the private sector."

Lord Shepherd said the NFC was going to expand as fast as possible on a commercial basis. It had been said that this expansion would be done by buying up private firms at knock-down prices after the NFC had undercut them with the help of a subsidy. This was not so. This had been called nationalization of road haulage. The Transport Minister had already said publicly that road haulage would not be nationalized, and that the NFC would not have a freight monopoly.

"The private sector will still have an important role to play. Freightliners are a valuable asset, and they will not need a subsidy.

VOLVO AND DODGE CAPTIONS

The caption to a picture on page 102 of this issue, which correctly relates to a new Dodge model, has also been printed in error on page 201. The caption on page 201 should read: 'The Volvo-Hands 42-tonner has been described as 'something for the future'—but it still seems there will be no substitute for someone seeing you into a gateway."

"If they should undercut road hauliers it will not be because of a subsidy but because they are more efficient and a more economic form of mu* haul transport.

"But I should like to stress that there is no question of forcing traffic on to rail where the service that rail can offer is inferior to movement by road."

And Lord Shepherd denied that the plan for Passenger Transport Authorities meant the destruction of competition. There was, in fact, very little competition in the bus world.

Opening for the Opposition, Lord Nugent of Guildford admitted that there were some good features in the Government's transport policy. But he believed there were features in it which were both unsound from the transport point of view and even more unsound in their impact on the national economy.

Lord Nugent acknowledged that public transport in conurbations should be integrated, but the Minister was completely wrong in setting up these new regional authorities to acquire all private and municipal bus undertakings.

It was a complete illusion to think that the

UNITED BUYS EAC

THE whole share capital of East Anglian Carriers Ltd., the 28-vehicle parcels firm. has been acquired by United Carriers Ltd., it was announced on Tuesday. The price: £69,850, of which £61,650 is in cash; the balance is the allotment of 18,267 Ordinary shares of 2s each in United, fully paid. EAC has premises in London. Norwich and Bury St. Edmunds and its net tangible assets are around £41,000. Profit for the year to April 1 1987 was £26,539 before tax and directors' remuneration. Principal shareholder, Mr. T. M. Rice, will remain as managing director; Mr. G. J. Wane and Mr. R. R. Kearsley (United directors) will join the EAC board.

mere change of ownership to a bigger public authority covering a bigger area was of itself going to achieve any benefit in the transport services given.

Lord Nugent agreed with the Government's intention to end the existing licensing system, and welcomed the measures dealing with quality control. But the Government was making a serious mistake on distance control. This kind of measure, which really set out to clip the wings of the private sector of road transport in the heavy trade vehicles, was one which a railway protection league might put up, not a Minister of Transport.

Earl Ferrers believed that in the long term it was likely that long-distance and bulk haulage by road might largely disappear. In the short term, hauliers who were now engaged on doing work which the railways would claim would either have to cut down their activities or go out of business.

Lord Chesham noted the cry, heard from time to time, about transport being taken out of the realm of politics. This was splendid in theory, but so long as we had two major political parties with different transport policies, so long would transport remain in politics.

If trade and industry were anything like right in their beliefs, complete chaos might well ensue when the Minister's proposals came into operation.