Myth Shattered
Page 3
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TF any road haulier had clung to the belief that the future would I hold in store for him what the past had offered, Dr. Beeching has shattered the myth. Liner Trains may well prove to be the greatest threat to mediumand long-distance road haulage yet devised. As expected, Dr. Beeching intends to choose traffics, letting' road have only what he doesn't want. Hauliers will be largely on their own because traders have nothing to lose, whatever happens, being by inclination users rather than operators of transport.
The railways will also push hard for certain general merchandise traffics and streamline their sundries traffic set-up. The picture is of a low-cost, efficient rail system trunking only the traffics it wants and steadily shedding local and under-100-mile work. The snag in this is, as it always has been with railways, service. Keen rates alone are not enough, important though they are. Hauliers must recognize quickly where they will be left alone, must decide quickly where else they want to compete, and then concentrate with utter ruthlessness on their own efficiency. That will be their trump card in this new transport pattern which is emerging.
Traders, because they apparently cannot lose by doing nothing, should none the less be well aware of the pitfalls inherent in complacency—should that set in.
Bus operators will have to contend with the repercussions of the closure of 2,363 stations for passenger traffic involving about 5,000 route miles, all but 122 miles of which (says Dr. Beeching) are already served by parallel stage services. This, of course, is a. vast oversimplification since the Doctor's implication is that few problems are involved in bus operators catering for the passengers he is ditching. Such may well prove untrue in practice. And provincial suburban operators may find themselves faced with complexities in the reorganization of their fares structure because of subsidy proposals.