Rail Transport Increases Timber Costs
Page 56
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THAT the use .of rail transport for 1 trees felled for timber increased the transport costs by 3d. per ft., as compared with the expense of road haulage, was a point made before the Yorkshire Licensing Authority, at Leeds, on Monday.
The applicant, Mr. H. Corps, of 70, Farnley Lane, Otley, sought permission to acquire under an A licence an articulated additional vehicle (4 tons), which he said was necessary because of the increased requirements of his haulage business.
Mr. Sturge, railway counsel, who e42 opposed the application, said that in consequence of competition from the applicant, railway receipts from one source alone for the conveyance of timber had fallen from 23,660 in 1934 to 2727 in 1936 and even less during the present year. He (counsel) submitted that this was a plain case of rate-cutting and of traffic abstracted from the railways.
In reply to the railway suggestion of rate-cutting, Mr. F. G. Bibbings, for the applicant, remarked that one day the railways might be sufficiently courageous to admit that anything
between 60 per cent. to SO per cent. of their traffic was carried at exceptional rates, The real point of view appeared to be that if, in the course of his normal activities and the provision of really suitable facilities, the applicant had succeeded in obtaining a certain amount of traffic which previously had been conveyed by rail, this should be regarded as a serious offence, but that railway abstraction from road transport was quite legitimate.
Decision was reserved.