HOT NEWS
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Means Transport
Deadlines
By
Ash ley Taylor, m.1. R,T.E.
Distributing Newspapers Over a Territory Extending from MidLancashire to West Cumberland Needs Team Work and Sometimes Superhuman Effort FOR most members of the public a certain aura of familiar romance surrounds the world of newspapers, investing them with an air of friendly reliability that is sadly disturbed on those rare occasions
• when the morning's or evening's news fails to appear at the anticipated moment.
By carefully built-up delivery systems papers appear on the streets, or at the newsagents, not at a fixed hour but at a pre-determined minute which even the most world-shaking occurrences usually fail to affect. The Press has a firm tradition that the news must come out, and even when delays occur, as sometimes they must in any walk of life, they are followed by superhuman efforts to get back on schedule.
In this team work the transport fleet has a vital part to play, whether circumstances dictate that its share be great or small. Much is heard of the fast newspaper trains that serve the principal arteries but these, unfortunately, are of little value to the provincial dailies and weeklies which, in many cases, are compelled to rely substantially on their own road transport.
Into this class fall the "Lancashire Evening Post," and that journal's associated weekly, the " Preston• Guardian-" Both were at one time distributed-largely by rail but, chiefly in consequence of the drastic pruning of train services, the bulk of the delivery work is now undertaken by the organization's own road motors. The railway continues to be employed for some districts but nowadays its achievements make a poor showing, indeed, when compared with the road vehicles engaged on such journeys as the 194-mile out-and-home run which is the longest of the " spokes " on the " Post's " delivery map.
The "Lancashire Evening Post," with a circulation of 116,000 daily and the largest evening sale in the northwest apart from the big city papers, prints at Preston and Wigan, distributing over a territory extending all the way from mid-Lancashire to West Cumberland.
This journal, established in 1886, and the "Preston Guardian," founded 108 years. ago, were largely railborne up to the end of the 1914-18 war, although horses and traps were employed to expedite the local work. However, 1919 saw the beginnings of the motor fleet, three Model-T Fords then being purchased.. Now there are 16 vehicles employed on main distributive duties at Preston, from which point 47 delivery services are scheduled by radius runs.
In addition, Wigan holds a small fleet for local deliveries and for the collection from Preston of matrices of those pages which are printed at the local office but composed and set up at the paper's headquarters. Vans for area work are also maintained at Workington, Whitehaven and Lancaster.
The fleet, which covers an average of 9,000 miles weekly, consists of Austin, Bedford, Chevrolet, Morris. Ford, Studebaker, Standard and Reliant machines. There are four Austin A40 vans, in addition to a 1933 Austin Light 12-4 which is confined to local work. Also mounted on an Austin chassis is the special mobile printing van which runs out to football matches, agricultural shows, hound trials and big sports gatherings, where late reports are stamped in on the spot; motive power for the press carried on this vehicle is provided by a 1 h.p. Villiers four-stroke industrial engine. Long-distance work is mainly shared between two Standard Vanguards and a Ford V8 Pilot export model. Among other vehicles of note are the smart 1949 forward-control Morris van, a 1951 Morris-Cowley van and the two lively little Reliant three-wheelers which provide a flexible and fast service around the streets of Preston and Wigan.
Attached to Preston are nine full-time drivers who work the complete period rosters. The rest of the vehicles are manned by part-time men who usually have delivery work with retail organizations in the earlier part of the day, as they are required by the
"Post" only in the afternoon for a series of editions covering a period of approximately three hours.
Reference has already been made to the West Cumberland run, on which the van leaves Preston with a special northern edition, fully loaded, and drops consignments at Lancaster and Kendal. Altogether this vehicle travels nearly 100 miles on the "up" run to Workington, making a stop near the completion of the journey, at a fixed inter-change point, when half the load is transferred to a local van that comes in from Whitehaven. At these terminal branch offices late news is stamped in on the papers then received.
The Preston van makes a break for a half-hour at Workington and then commences its return run along the " trunk" route, carrying papers with supplementary news to such places as Cockermouth and Keswick. Duties are arranged so that in the course of a week the men concerned do three days on the Workington trip, two days locally at Preston and have one day off. From Grasmere the route mentioned goes high up over Dunmail Raise, then along by the side of Thirlmere and, on the other side of Keswick, beneath the shadow of the mighty Skiddaw and alongside Bassenthviaite Lake.
Despite the heavy snows experienced in these parts in winter, the " Eveningprost " van has always got through with the news, sometnes being the first vehicle to cross the Raise after the onset of severe weather. The drivers concerned are, of course, men who know their country, and the varying weather conditions usually make little difference to them. More likely to disorganize the schedule, so they say, is the unpredictable behaviour of motorists who crowd the roads in high summer on the way to the holiday centres. During the winter each van carries an additional spare wheel ready fitted with chains although, in any case, on these routes Michelin " S " tyres, which give remarkably good gripping power, are invariably employed.
Serving places up to and including Grasmere, a van with the last northern edition follows the same main route as that just mentioned, there being a still later van for Lancaster and Morecambe. Other radial runs worked by the fleet are to Southport, Fleetwood, to Lytham St. Annes and through to Blackpool, also to Leyland and Chorley.
Although curtailment of rail facilities has necessitated this form of delivery being progressively replaced by road, some districts—mainly East Lancashire and Penrith—are still worked in this way. Carriage by buses is extensively employed to cater for what may be described as the extra-suburban territories, and, in other places to provide supplies for smaller communities without the necessity of diverting vans from their tightly scheduled through routes.
Quite a number of transport employees has long terms of service with the paper, and up to 12 months ago, when he retired, one of the original pony and trap drivers was still on the pay-roll, having put in 30 years with motor vehicles, latterly on local delivery work. The full-time men are usually able to perform such routine duties as washing, greasing and checking of tyres during the morning period before the first runs commence but there is also garage staff to take care of such work generally and to deal with running repairs. The services provided by local distributors of the respective vehicles are utilized in eVery case for the carrying out of general repairs, comprehensive maintenance and overhauls.
Right from the foundation of the "Post" a wide area has been covered, but in modern times road transport has enabled the publishers to re-intensify the service that is offered in areas far distant from the main printing centre and to speed the news in a manner that would be impossible were it necessary to rely upon rail delivery. In this manner smaller industrial centres, with populations in the 20,000-30,000 range and remote from the big cities, are given a sound late news coverage, a facility in which even the little country communities of the Lake District are able to share. Both in and out of season the north-western holiday area—including Blackpool, Morecambe and Heysham, Southport, Lytham St. Annes, Grange-over-Sands, Fleetwood, Silverdale and Thornton Cleveleys—is kept in the overall Lancashire news picture.
In these days it is hardly to be expected that people will set their watches by passing vehicles, as tradition says they were wont to do in the stage-coach era, but there is no doubt that the reliability of the red and cream vans of the " Lancashire Evening Post" is such that in many parts of the North they are regarded as the standard by which to judge the punctuality of bus or train. But chiefly they are welcomed as an assurance that on yet another day, for the expenditure of a mere couple of coppers, the world and his wife will be able to read the news of that very afternoon, some of it happening in the next parish, some of it brought in the space of a few hours from the far corners of the earth.