Back on the Rails
Page 65
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RECENT evidence that the Government favour the railways seems to have impressed itself -more strongly on hauliers than on other categories of road user. Aghast at the enormous sums of Money promised to the railways for development and the staving off of deficits, and angered by the introduction of new oil engines at a time when the fuel is so scarce, hauliers are near to thinking that the Government have deliberately manufactured the fuel crisis with the intention of ruining them.
The C-licence holder has less immediate provocation to think along the same lines. He wishes no particular harm to the railways, particularly if they are planning to provide him with a cheaper and -better services For the time being, he has to restrict the use of his own vehicles, but he may be able to pool his traffic with that of other traders, or find a haulier to do the Work—or use the railways. That they are taking more of his traffic than usual upsets him only when he sees the bill.
In the latest issue of the British Transport Review, Mr. S. C. Bond argues in favour of the transfer from road to rail of as much iron and steel traffic as possible, His article is based upon a paper read more than six months ago, before the disaster in the Middle East, and before the publication even of the interim decision of the Transport Tribunal on the railway maximum charges scheme, but these events do not affect his main conclusions.
Mr. Bond notes that there is a trend towards road transport even for the Carriage of such raw materials as -ironstone, and that, since the war, and increasingly as time goes on, road transport has attracted from the railways the carriage of finished products from iron and steel works. He is equally definite about the reasons.
Rough Shunting
His experience is that road rates are almost always lower than rail, whether for short distances or long. The whole of the finished products of the Stanton Iron Co., Ltd., of which Mr. Bond is the transport manager, could be transported by road cheaper than by rail, with a saving of many thousands of pounds. Road transport is quicker and more certain. Rough shunting on rail frequently causes breakage or other damage. The customer's wish is often for the kind of door-to-door delivery that only road transport can provide.
Based upon these premises, his conclusion is unexpected. The Government, he says, insist on having an efficient railway system as a national asset. They also insist that the railways pay their way, in spite of competition. ." The interests of the iron and steel industry may be best served by keeping not only the raw materials on rail but by bringing back to rail a large proportion of the higher-class traffics which in recent years have gone by road. The more of the latter that are carried by rail the cheaper finally will be the generality of railway rates."
All this sounds curiously like a comment in another contribution to the same publication. As railway modernization proceeds, and as railway competition develops, says Mr. Richard Fry, financial editor, Manchester Guardian, it may well be shown that "the national cost of transport has been unnecessarily raised by the under-employment of the railway system." It
seems an ingenuous argument' that, because the railways are expensive, they should be given more traffic so that they may then become cheap, but it is precisely this policy that the Government have adopted during thefuel shortage.
Mr. Fry calls upon the Government to formulate a policy "based on a genuine economic estimate of how the nation's transport cost might be reduced, compatible with a reasonable degree of individual choice." He is not so much thinking of reduced fares and charges, although these would no doubt follow if the right policy were adopted. What he has in mind is keeping down the proportion of public expenditure and investment that goes into transport. His article is concerned almost
entii'ely with road and rail transport.
In the years without a policy, says Mr. Fry, "each form. of-tranSport has been developed, or not developed, without much regard to what happened to the others." He finds, not surprisingly, that road transport has developed much more quickly and vigorously than the railways.
National Manpower In December, 1954, there were just over 2.1m. people employed in internal transport, or nearly 10 per cent. of the national manpower in civil employment. Rather more than one quarter were working on the railways, and nearly all the remaining three-quarters in road transport. Something over lm. people were engaged in the carriage of goods by road in C-licensed.vehicles in that year.
About 12 per cent. of all domestic expenditure is on transport. Of this proportion, three-quarters was spent by road users in 1954, and only about 21 per cent. on the railways. Gross investment outlay on railways, road passenger •transport, passenger cars for business purposes, road goods vehicles, and the roads themselves,. might amount to between 18-19 per cent. of ,total gross investment in all industry and trade. Over one-third of the transport figure was absorbed by expenditure on road goods vehicles. • -Mr. Fry finds this, point important. He notes that most of the investment in vehicles was undertaken by traders for the carriage of their Own goods. A substantial proportion of the vans and lorries Operating under C licences, he suspects, are grossly tinder-employed. "They may be a luxury which can be afforded only during a boom period."
Apply the Squeeze
If there is under-employment of C-licensed vehicles. and under-employment of the railways, one or other of them would no doubt have to be restricted by any general policy that Mr. Fry would find acceptable. He leaves little doubt about where he would apply the squeeze. He undermines the position of the C-licence holder in a way that is much more insidious, than a frontal attack.
What road operators may find disturbing is that Mr. Fry's verdict on the railways so much resembles that of Mr. Bond, the champion of the C-licence holders. Hauliers are beginning to be aware of the danger in the new plans for the railways, and an equal awareness among C-licence holders -might be desirable.