CONI_NIEN'T
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WHO WANTS THE MONEY?
ecognise this quote? "Hauliers cannot be expected to shoulder all the risk. .."Turn to page 12 For a clue. Otherwise we'll say it's From the head of rail freight policy at the Freight Transport Association castigating the Department of Transport for failing to publicise railfreight development grants—and the rail freight companies for expecting hauliers to gamble alone on road/rail schemes. Of course the average haulier can't wait to open his own rail siding, if only he could get a grant. Fact: the annual tonnage of freight transferred from road to rail as a result of the grants actually FELL from 16-million tonnes a year in 1985 to lust 10-million in 1996. So much for all those grandiose promises from politicians to "put freight back on the rails". Forget the money, where's the demand? The DOT, meanwhile, has done hardly anything to broadcast railfreight schemes, says the Parliamentary Committee for Public Accounts. Since 1985 less than half the £70m worth of railfreight grants put aside to encourage companies to take Freight off the roads have been claimed. But then, who knows about them? As long ago as last March (CM 21-27 March to be precise) we were telling readers how to get their hands on Freight Facility and Track Access grants. So has the DOT backed up such schemes with major advertising campaigns? Has it
hell, However, CM is still prepared to take an ad from Marsham Street; we may even offer them a special rate for volume. At least one operator is betting on rail, however.
Eddie Stobart is setting up his own railfreight service between
Scotland and the Midlands on the grounds that it will beat motorway congestion. Good luck to him. But as long as endemic rate cutting makes road haulage such an attrac tive method of moving goods we can't see things changing—railfreight grants or no railfreight grants.