No feather-bed for rail, union assured
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• Speaking in York on June 20, at a public meeting on the Transport Bill organized by the Transport and General Workers' Union, Mr. Neil Carmichael, Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Transport, referring to the proposals for quantity licensing, said:— "There has been no secrecy about how the system will work. The railways will get the traffic only if they can offer a service as good in terms of speed, cost and reliability as the road haulier. And we mean what we say. We are not proposing to feather-bed the railways.
"There will be no question of the railways trying to grab traffic which they know they can't handle efficiently and economically. And even if they did try it, the Licensing Authorities—independent bodies—will see that they don't get away with it. There will be thousands and thousands of longdistance journeys where the railways just can't hope to compete. And if road transport feels the pinch at all it will be where the Freightliner routes can do a more efficient job than road."