Special Pleading
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IN a recent article entitled," What the Railways Ask," Sir Reginald Wilson, a member of the British Transport Commission, comments on the future role of the railways in meeting the requirements of industry, the travelling public and the taxpayer. Road transport operators, whether passenger or goods, will find it both revealing and controversial.
Despite much labour expended over many months on the Commission's Railway Merchandise Charges Scheme, Sir Reginald asks when the railways are to receive their promised freedom in charging. Briefly, July 1.But could it be that as the date draws near the railways are reluctant at heart to lose for ever their stock-in-trade answer to awkward questions, namely, their statutory obligation to carry?
That Brave New World Throughout the article there runs this element of special pleading readily associated with the railways' pronouncements of the past, but strangely out of step with the brave new world that we are told lies ahead for the railways of tomorrow. It is in contrast, too, with the Minister's recent description of the railway modernization plan as bold and imaginative, although he also said that if the railway industry did not want the plan the railways would have to be broken up and sold.
Public transport is a service, we are told, based on a master-servant relationship. So, too, are all forms of transport, whatever relative success they may achieve. The distinction lies in the payment of losses resulting from poor service.
The subtle presumption of the Ivory Tower becomes evident when one reads that, if competition is to be the order of the day, publicly owned undertakings cannot behave very differently from, or have much higher standards than, the private transport concern. Railway customers, in particular, may find difficulty in tracing the higher standards which presumably they have so far been receiving, whilst ruminating on the atnbiguity of the railways' differing behaviour.
Commenting on road and rail express passenger services, Sir Reginald claims that road costs are artificially halved by the protection of the licensing system, whereas the cost of vehicle and fuel duties is much less than the track cost of a train. Could it be that the permanent way is not such a good idea after all for meeting 20th-century needs? Surely it is the road operator who has just grounds for complaint, both because road funds have been misappropriated over the years and now his cornpetitor is exempt from tax on railcar fuel. It is putting the cart before the horse with a vengeance for Sir Reginald to say that if too much has been spent on road vehicles and too little on roads, it is because of the unplanned nature of road transport.
• What Passengers Prefer Rail cost per seat, we are told, is lower than by corresponding express road passenger services, but dearer per occupied seat, because the railways must provide spare capacity. Another reason could be that the travelling public prefer to be transported frequently in small numbers, however operationally convenient it may be Tor the railways to do otherwise. Their own belated success with railcar services would seem to confirm this view.
The railways' biggest burden, says Sir Reginald, is the leisurely and quasi-legal procedure which affects so much of railway business. But hope is restored. "At least the Victorian procedure and attitudes of mind towards railway business ought to be got rid of," he adds. At Commission level, too?