P.M.T. Traffic R
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emains Steady
NAORE than 129 m. passengers were IVI carried by the Potteries Motor Traction Co. Ltd. in 1963—about the same figure as for the previous year, revealed Mr. Raymond W. Birch, chairman and managing director, at the company's annual general meeting on Friday. The 1963 figure included nine months' traffic accruing from the purchase of T. Beckett and .Son Ltd., -but the exceptionally bad winter and very poor summer tended to make the figures more truly comparable. Profit for the year, at £217,742 after tax, was slightly up on 1962 (the detailed results appeared in The Commercial Motor of March 20, page 94). Mr. Birch said that by the end of 1963 some two-thirds of the company's 1963-64 rolling-stock programme had been completed. The big new bus station and garage at Longton should be ready for use before next winter, he said. Most services terminating at Longton would use undercover herringbone bays, while most of the high-frequency through services would rnuse kerbside stops around the station. The new building would, he said, have full maintenance facilities, restaurant, cafeteria, booking and administrative offices.
Little profit was likely to come from rail replacement services resulting from the Beeehing Plan, forecast Mr. Birch, either for P.M.T. or for other companies. He welcomed the Buchanan Report's encouragement for public transport and contrasted this with the "bitter disappointment" that once again the Chancellor had offered no fuel tax relief. Mr. Birch was optimistic about the effect of fast M6 motorway services on the company's summer coach traffic, but recorded that the diversion of traffic on to M6, while it reduced congestion in Newcastle under Lyme, had also sharply reduced custom at the company's Fourin-Hand catering establishment. Full service was being maintained in the hope of recovering custom.