Rail to road golden chance
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from a special correspondent • The continuing rail disruption is providing a bonanza for road hauliers. By Wednesday one large operator in the South of England had obtained work for 100 vehicles on trunk hauls. Reports from operators in the South East suggested that in many cases their Vehicles were now working to capacity or would be by the weekend if the disruption continued. In many cases they were hopeful that this would be a turning point for them and that the traffic which they were winning from the railways would now be retained.
In the North of England and Scotland the picture was different in that a number of vehicles were still available but operators were hopeful that they would obtain capacity traffic within a few days.
By Wednesday National Carriers Ltd was beginning to experience the first effects of the railway employees' work to rule. NCL depends largely on rail for its long-haul traffic and during the early part of the week consignments were building up at depots. A spokesman for NCL said that the Yellow Diamond guaranteed delivery service was not now operating in every area. "Where there is any doubt we advise the customer," he said: "it is essential that we keep faith with our customers whatever difficulties we have to face."
NCL is already trunking mediumdistance traffic with its own vehicles and the possibility of trunking long-distance traffic was being considered on Wednesday. The spokesman pointed out that the final decision was largely dependent on the driving staff in each area. The 9000 NCL drivers are in the main members of the NUR and although they are not in dispute with management there is a possibility that they might view long-distance trunking as harmful to the railmen's case.
The danger ...
At Freightliners Ltd, where the men are also NUR members, the story was much the same. The great danger here was that the Freightliner company, which is a member of the National Freight Corporation and is unconnected with British Railways, would not know whether its consignments were being delivered until they had got beyond the point of no return at Freightliner terminals.
The Freightliner spokesman said that if need be they also would be switching traffic to road.
Mr C. F. Mason, of Tartan Arrow Services Ltd, which operates company trains between London and Glasgow, said the trains were still running although they were late but any serious disruption would result in an immediate switch to road transport.