IT DEPENDS WHAT YOU MEAN
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TARGON is seldom far from the lips of politicians and of those people whose words and deeds are controlled partly or wholly by political considerations. The tone of the railway reports over the years has changed in accordance with the Party in power and with the policy of that Party. The actual words chosen, however, are for preference those which have been drained of their content by frequent and sometimes improper use.
Until recently the concept of integration had dropped out of fashion. It had become associated with discredited policies. Different forms of transport could work together, it was thought, without being responsible to another integrating organization. There were advantages , in voluntary co-operation in that it preserved customer choice.
Proposal welcomed
For a time the railway annual reports reflected this approach even if they did not always follow it exactly. The latest report for 1966 has moved a little further on—or a little further back according to the viewpoint. The cue has had to be taken from the White Paper on transport policy issued last July which foreshadows the closer integration of publicly-owned rail and road services. The Railways Board welcome this proposal, although they do so in the context of the promise also in the White Paper of a "more sensible financial structure".
It is scarcely unfair to suggest that to the railways the "sensible" structure is the one which is most to their advantage. The word recurs in the comments on the proposed National Freight Organization. Somewhat coyly the report pretends to no special knowledge of the precise form which it will take. Full details may not be known until the new Transport Bill is published. The Board claim nevertheless that the purpose is clear. It is "to ensure that the resources of the public sector for carrying goods are so organized as to be fully and sensibly used".
The recurrent complaint of the railways is that they are under-used. The public pass them by. Trains run with insufficient traffic or do not run at all. If the purpose is to alter this state of affairs the new organization must begin with a predetermined bias in favour of sending goods by rail.
On the other hand, say the railways, the use of existing resources must be "sensible". With this criterion in mind the new organization could come to the conclusion that more rather than less goods traffic ought to go by road on the grounds that it was more convenient, possibly cheaper and often more in accordance with the customer's wishes. "Fully" and "sensibly" may be alternatives rather than two sides of the same coin as the railways seem to believe.
Much of their confidence may stem from new developments and in particular the Freightliner. This has still to be proved efficient and economic. The railways have a sad history of promising developments which come to nothing. The 1966 report resembles most of its predecessors in its inability to conceal the evidence of a continuous decline in spite of the brave jargon.
The overall deficit of £134.7m. may present an unnecessarily gloomy and unfair picture as the Board suggests. The working deficit, although still very high at £71.6m., was £1-im. lower than in 1965 and is praiseworthy evidence of careful management during a difficult year. How difficult it was from the operational point of view is shown by the statistics of the traffic. Passenger receipts were up slightly although there was a fairly considerable drop in the number of passengers carried. On the freight side traffic as well as receipts was down as compared with the totals for the previous year.
Even more disquieting
The fall was reflected in all types of traffic, coal and coke, iron and steel, and general. What may be even more disquieting is that for general traffic the average receipts in 1966 of £1 18s. 7d rer ton and 3.78d per net ton mile were less than the corresponding figures for 1965 of £1 19s, 2d and 4d. The loss of traffic was certainly not due to increases in rates. Some of them may even have been reduced.
The picture has been familiar for many years past. Passengers have been fewer but fares higher whereas freight revenue and traffic have declined. Total freight train receipts were £235m. in 1963, and were no more than £217m. in 1966. Total tonnage fell from 235m. to 214m. On the subject of the prospects for 1967 the latest report says that "railway results are heavily influenced by the state of the economy and in present circumstances it is difficult to forecast". In the careful language of official reports this appears to mean that 1967 will show no improvement.
All these uncomfortable facts and figures and a good many more besides must be well known by the Minister and by her experts. Their plans seem to be based upon °the' factors such as the Freightliner and the expected improvements to be brought about by the National Freight Organization. Not much thought seems to have been given to possible developments on the road side.
So much faster
Beyond perhaps 200 miles the Freightliner is at present so much faster than the lorry that some traders are bound to find it more suited to their purpose. No inquiry seems to have been made into the extent to which this will remain true even over the next few years. Lorries capable of travelling comfortably and safely at 70 m.p.h. have been using the motorways for a long time. Their number will increase as more and more high speed roads are opened.
On the surface the main obstacle is the refusal of drivers not so much to travel at 70 m.p.h. as to accept working schedules based on a maximum speed of 40 or even 30 m.p.h. Where this difficulty has been overcome, in some cases perhaps by breaking the law, fast transit times have been made possible. With the use of two motorways regular services have operated for some time between Lancashire and London by drivers who travel both ways in the course of a single legal working day.
Where this can be done the Freightliner might be found superfluous. The roads which compete with Freightliner routes are not those on which congestion is most serious or they are rapidly being improved. The main traffic problem lies within the conurbations and is unaffected by the means of iransport used to bring goods into the towns.
If a national freight authority is really needed it might do better to concern itself, not so much with the distribution of longdistance traffic between road and rail in accordance with vague criteria such as that suggested in the railway report, but with the means available for dealing with that traffic at each end of the journey.