Leviathans and Juggernauts
Page 63
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Political Commentary By JANUS FOR a change it would be refreshing to read somewhere an attack upon the railways for carrying a large or awkward load that ought really to be consigned by road, where there are not so many passengers to be inconvenienced, and the journey can be made from door-to door. The reason why the railways do not attract this kind of adverse publicity is not so much a silent tribute to their success as an acknowledgment of their inability to cater for the really troublesome outsize load.
Many people have had the strange idea that goods are sent by road only out of prejudice. What has lately become clear is that if the railways are given extra traffic beyond a certain modest limit, they would not be able to carry it. Ambitious plans for the wholesale transfer of general traffic to rail during the fuel shortage have revealed instead that the railways simply cannot handle more than about 20 per cent. in excess of the volume of goods they are at present carrying.
The same is true of the abnormal and indivisible loads. If it came to the point, the number of these loads that the railways could take from the roads would be few.
Realization of this has tended to make the heavy haulier fancy his position invulnerable. His occasional sharp rejoinders to criticism are more like a reflex action than evidence of a settled policy. By not actively Campaigning for some improvement in his lot, he has all the appearance of guilt. lie seems like a hunted animal that hopes, by making as little. noise as possible. to merge into the scenery and escape notice.
Public Opinion He has friends in high places, but they are not loud in their support. He forgets that the higher the position, the more exposed it is to the breeze of public opinion. His .enemies make up in number what they may lack in influence. When it comes to the point, concealment is useless. The outsize load is almost. by definition, something that cannot fail to be. noticed. One might almost as soon expect Gulliver to travel about Lilliput unobserved,
The Government may realize in practice that they cannot solve the problem of the outsize load by a decree that it must go by rail, or even by coastwise shipping. They are still under pressure to restrict the heavy haulier by every method that ingenuity can devise. His enemies have a double line of attack. When, as invariably happens, they fail to win agreement to the transfer of the outsize load to some other form of transport, they ask whether, as some sort of compensation to them, the life of the haulier can be made as complicated as possible.
About a year ago, an extraordinary document was issued from the Ministry of Transport. It contained proposals for a ,number of restrictions to be added to those that already make the life of the heavy haulier almost as great a burden as one of his specialized loads.
Individual Orders from the Minister were to be required for many more loads than at present. Where certain dimensions Were exceeded, three weeks' notice had to be given to the Licensing Authority. In addition to the not inconsiderable details already required, the consignor was to be asked to say why the load could • not be broken down into smaller units for transport, and why other means of transport could not be used for the whole or the major part of the journey.
Before the haulier could even make a start his customer was to give him a certificate showing that the Licensing Authority saw no objection to the making of the proposed journey by road if a suitable route by road were available., Other suggested changes in the law concerned speed limits and the giving of notification to the police.
What distinguished the document in particular was the diffident approach. There was an air of reluctance, as though the proposals had been dragged from the Minister by force. There was, it appeared, a widespread feeling, which he scarcely even pretended to share, but which apparently had "found expression both inside 'and outside Parliament," that heavy haulage by road was "relatively so easy and so cheap that many consignors do not ask themselves whether, in the interests of other road users," they could without undue expense use alternative transport, or whether the load 'could be reduced in size and weight, or split up.
Stricter Control Obviously, the widespread feeling had penetrated into the Ministry sufficiently far to make it necessary for the Minister at least to examine proposals for stricter control. The reaction from hauliers, and from trade and industry, was immediate, and apparently effective. Nothing further has been heard of the document.
Operators may not always be so fortunate. Letters continue to appear in the Press, referring freely and uncomplimentarily to leviathans and juggernauts, and suggesting their removal from the roads to the railways, where they would apparently acquire respectability, and where they would certainly not hinder the motorist. Whether in the Lords or the Commons, no Parliamentary debate would be complete without a blow or two at the heavy haulier.
He would be well advised to speak up in his own defence, and even to carry the war into the other camp. He is responsible each year for the carriage of several thousand abnormal, indivisible loads. Each one should have its own story. Without the skill, the equipment and the tenacity of the haulier, it could not be carried from where it is made to where it is wanted. Factories and power stations would not be built; export markets would be inaccessible. Each year new problems arise. The size of electrical equipment, in particular, seems to increase with each new technical advance, and the growing use of atomic power introduces its own transport problems, Transport across country provides the best possible opportunity for the display of the latest and most impressive products of British industry. It should not be impossible for the haulier to turn the tables on his detractors by making each journey a triumphal progress rather than what other road users, are prone to regard as an invasion of their rights. A travelling circus often contrives to tise the very size of its heavy haulage problem as a means of advance publicity. In its own way, the work of the industrial heavy haulier is just as romantic.