Rail Overtaxed: Extra Coach Services

21st September 1956, Page 95

21st September 1956

Page 95

Page 95, 21st September 1956 — Rail Overtaxed: Extra Coach Services

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f N a reserved decision, the North I Western Licensing Authority has granted applications by Crosville Motor Services, Ltd., Ribble Motor Services, Ltd., and W. C. Standerkiek Ltd., for an express service from Skipton to Llandudno. Bracewells (Come), Ltd., Ribblesdale Coachways, Ltd., and J. Wcarden and Sons. Ltd., Blackburn, have been authorized to run a similar service between Caine and Llandudno.

The Authority stated that railway facilities on parts of the route between east Lancashire and the main North

Wales coastal reorts were overtaxed on sufficient occasions during the peak summer period to warrant the provision of additional facilities by road. Ribble's grant is from mid-June to mid-September. Proposed picking-up and setting-down points at Warrington, Abergele and Prestatyn were refused. Passengers for Rhyl, Colwyn Bay and Llandudno may be picked up at points between Skipton and Preston. There is an allowance of two vehicles on any day, except on Saturdays between the first Saturday in July and the second Saturday in August, when 14 additional vehicles may be operated. The Ribblesdale joint service will operate on week-days between the first Tuesday of Burnley holiday week and the Thursday of August Bank Holiday week, excluding Mondays and Fridays. A joint service on certain Saturdays and Sundays from June to August will be confined to period returns from east Lancashire towns to Rhyl, Colwyn Bay arid Llandudno. Prestatyn, Abergele and Rhos-on-Sea were refused. One vehicle was authorized on weekdays, two on Sundays, 14 additional On the second and fourth Saturday in July, and 20 additional on the third Saturday. Day excursions must not be run during the period the express service is licensed. The Authority stated that the vehicle allowances were experimental and were subject to alteration, by request or objection, in 1958 At the hearing, which took seven days early this year, Mr. H. Backhousc, for Ribblesdale. said that since the Licensing Authority's ruling in 1953 that cast Lancashire operators must not link picking-up points and destinations on their excursions and tours licences to North Wales, which had been the practice previously, they had been faced with the impossible problem of trying to build passengers into coach loads. There was ample traffic if they were allowed to link. For Ribble, it was said that express service operators disliked the linking of excursions and tours destinations. Whilst there might be a case for an exception to North Wales destinations, they were frightened of the general proposition of excursion operators coming in with pseudo express services.

"BAN HEAVY TRAFFIC." TRADERS in Stockton-on-Tees urge a reduction in heavy goods traffic through the town's main street, reputed to be the widest in the country. They want all big articulated outfits to he banned from passing through the street during normal business hours, and big companies to dispatch their vehicles early in the morning.