Smalls Service!
Page 57
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Parcels Traffic to Seaside Resorts Increases Greatly During Summer.. Over Half of Traffic Collected in Area Consigned Elsewhere : B.R.S.TariffZone Basis AYOUT of the railways in East Anglia did not 1...e
give sufficiently rapid cross-country movements, as I pointed out in the first part of this article last week, and this deficiency provided scope for the development of numerous haulage enterprises specializing in smalls. I described the activities of various long-established carriers, and mentioned several Operators who have entered this branch of 'transport comparatively recently.,
Another. new enterprise is that of East Anglian .Carriers, Ltd., who owe their origin to Mr. T. F. Rice, formerly .a director of Eastern Roadways, Ltd. At nationalization, 504 of this group's 540 vehicles were taken over and all the long-distance companies in the Organization, of course, disappeared. Mr. Rice did not personally
transfer but preferred to take advantage of his shipping and forwarding connections to develop the company known as Premier Transportation Services, Ltd.
With the end of control approaching. he thought of using his knowledge of conditions in the Eastern Counties to start a general service for bulk traffic and smalls, and it appeared to him best to do this in conjunction with established carriers in the area. Mr. P. H. Pointer, operating from Norwich, and Mr. 0. J. H. Smith, based on Barrow, near Bury St. Edmunds, agreed to join in a new company for this purpose and so East Anglian Carriers, Ltd., were started. Other directors besides Mr. Rice are Mr. S. Herbert and Mr..T. Watson.
The arrangement is that the particular operators keep their own bulk traffic, but all smalls are pooled and the accounts handled by the new company. Essex and• Cambridge can be served by arrangement but, generally, the service given is between London and Norfolk and Suffolk, nightly trunk services being run in each direction between London and Norwich and between London and Ipswich.
Boxvans of 8and 10-ton capacity are used as far as possible for trunking, but, as with other carriers, the c8 traffic is unbalanced. A London depot has recently been opened at Peto Street South, Silvertown Way, and Mr. Rice proposes to try an experiment there by not building a deck. With the aid of fork-lift trucks and conveyors, he thinks it possible to unload and load off the floor just as efficiently.
East Anglian Carriers, Ltd., now have two rates schedules for normal traffic according to the nature of the goods. Originally a table was put out starting at 20 lb. then showing 14 lb. steps.from 1 qr. up to 5 cwt., followed by 1 cwt. rises to 1 ton, The two tables which supersede this give flat tonnage rates above 3 cwt. All rates are shown in relation to mileage.
By far the biggest and most comprehensive parcels and smalls service in the Eastern Counties is that provided by B.R.S,, and as I went through the details of the set-up with Mr. A. Porter (now district manager, Norwich, and formerly a director of Eastern Roadways, Ltd:) and Mr. A. W. Cheyne (now manager of the Eastern Parcels Branch and formerly with Sutton and Co. [Manchester], Ltd.), it was easy to see how the prenationalization services which I knew so well had been brought together and improved.