Municipalities Encouraging Lack of Choice
Page 73
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MR. MOSES should be congratulated for his excellent survey and analysis of the municipal and company bus fleets (The Commercial Motor, October 1) which seems to become increasingly comprehensive each year. My one regret is that it has not been found possible to include coverage of the West Riding and Lancashire United fleets. Whilst, admittedly, both are outside the principal company groupings and strictly speaking in the independent category, their very size dictates a personality and outlook in keeping with big company policy.
I was particularly gratified to note Mr. Moses' emphasis and comments on the increasingly dangerously dominant position the Leyland Motor Corporation is attaining in the supply of heavy passenger chassis, a position accentuated by the recent partnership agreement between the Leyland organization and Bristol/ECW. This unhappy situation (which surely must be to the great detriment of the operating side of the industry) has been either blissfully ignored or viewed very complacently by the greater part of the trade Press.
Even Mr. Moses apparently felt it necessary to play down the monopoly threat a little by referring to recent correspondence in the journal forecasting the demise of the AEC double-decker, which he considered to be unnecessarily gloomy. The majority of this correspondence was penned before news of the impending cessation of production of the .AEC Renown was known (The Commercial Illotor, September 24) and this development has only intensified the fears of many people like myself who feel the time is now nearly at hand when the AEC double-decker will become merely a species of historical curiosity. The entire order book of 191 AEC double-deckers for the combined municipal and company sphere pales into insignificance compared with Leyland's 971 and Daimler's 766.
It is self-evident. as Mr. Moses says, that the BET group is acutely conscious of the growing dominance of Leyland in the passenger chassis field, and it would appear that unless a member company has been standardizing on Leyland products for some considerable time (such as Ribble and Yorkshire Traction), the Daimler Fleetline is favoured so far as the group's requirements for rear-engined double-deckers are concerned. It is perhaps a happy coincidence that the Fleetline is one of the most technically excellent chassis to be built for the operating industry in recent years.
The situation seems to be a good deal less happy in the municipal world, however, where some of the largest municipalities — particularly Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh. and Newcastle—have set a very bad example indeed, having thrown caution to the wind, presumably in the interests of standardization.
It might he argued in Glasgow's favour that there are extenuating circumstances, as the Atlantean chassis are actually built in that city at Albion's works and the transport department is thus making a direct contribution to the preservation of local employment. Even so, Glasgow