Railways Will Keep Some •" Crisis" Traffic—Sir Brian Robertson
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THE railways had had specific assurances from a number of traders who had recently given them traffic, that they would continue to send it by rail, Sir Brian Robertson, chairman of the British Transport Commission; told Nottingham Chamber of Commerce, last Friday.
He was commenting on the 25-percent, increase in general goods traffic which the railways had experienced over last year's figures, but he would not speculate on how much, of that they would hold when fuel rationing ended. . In recent weeks, die railways had been used by a large number of traders who had not done so for some time, and they had found that they got "very much better" service than they had expected, he said.
Although the amount of coal carried by rail since fuel rationing began had risen by about 250,000 torts a week, that was caused largely by increased coal prodqction. The diversion from road to rail was probably not more than 60,000 tons a week, and the railways could carry still more.
He thought there was something wrong when that type of traffic was moved, over medium Or long distances, by road. However much was spent on the road programme, the road System -would never be adequate for that, kind of traffic. There was plenty of -business for the haulier without an unnatural distortion of traffic of that nature.
"When I say that there is Something wrong, I fully agree that the faith May lie with British Railways," Sir Brian added. He thought that they were more alive to thii situation after their experience of the past weeks.
Better Service
The railways could claim that they were now offering a better service for general goods. Journey times showed an improvement last year.
Special, arrangements introduced last year for dealing with export consignments from the Midlands to ports were working well, and had already attracted extra traffic.
Referring to British Road Services, Sir Brian denied that he was unfriendly towards private hauliers. There was business for both sections of the industry.
"I have no unkind feelings about C-licence fleets either, except that I ant bound to regard their existence as mainly our fault," he said. He hoped that C-licence operators would continually check their transport costs, keep in touch with the B.T.C. and give them a chance to show whether they could do better.
[The Commission estimate that in the four weeks to February 24, fuel rationing was responsible for raising railway revenue from merchandise traffic by 25 per cent. and rail passenger receipts by about 20 per cent. Only 2 per cent. of the 14 per cent. increase in coal and coke receipts is attributable to the oil sitnni ion 1