WALLACE ARNOLD EXPRESS SERVICE REFUSED
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AN application . by. Wallace Arnold Tours Ltd., of Leeds, to run express services from Castleford to Blackpool Was refused by the Yorkshire Traffic Commissioners at Leeds last week. Mr. G. Steel, traffic manager for Wallace Arnold, said the application was made because '`'‘we felt we had a duty to do so ".
The Commissioners were told that Wallace Arnold had operated an express service from Leeds to Blackpool for more than 40 years, and it was submitted that over the past five or six years the company's booking oflice and depot at Castleford (from which it operates express services to Skegness, Great Yarmouth, Torquay and Paignton) had received an increasing number of inquiries and bookings for the Leeds-Blackpool service. In 1962, 311 passengers who booked at the Castleford office were carried from Leeds to Blackpool; in 1963 the figure rose to 551. These people had had to travel in to Leeds by various modes of transport to connect with the Leeds-Blackpool service, said Mr. Steel, and the aim of the application was to help those who already used the service to Blackpool but who, at present, must make their own way to Leeds.
Mr. Steel agreed that in 1964 so far Wallace Arnold had received fewer complaints from people who claimed they were unable to travel direct from Castleford to Blackpool.
Mr. F. Marshall, for Wallace Arnold Tours, said his clients felt the need for a direct service had been forced on them by circumstance. He claimed a number of people had tried to hook with them having been unable to be accommodated on the West Riding Automobile Co. Ltd. service from Castleford to Blackpool.
The application was submitted in November and published in December.
Since that time there had been an award of an 8+ per cent increase in fares and the applicants asked for the rates as originally submitted to be brought in line with current rates. The application asked for services operating outwards on Whit Saturday. returning on Whit Tuesday, and Saturdays only from the last Saturday in July to the third Saturday in September, and Saturdays and Sundays during the illuminations.
Stressing that they were limited by the calendar regarding this year it was said that the application represented 36 vehicle operations. There was no intention of duplicating the Castleford-Blackpool illumination services which Wallace Arnold have been operating for the past decade; the services were incorporated in the application and the separate illumination licence would be given up.
Mr. W. R. Hargrave, objecting for West Riding Automobile Co. Ltd. and the West Yorkshire Road Car Co. Ltd. (for Yorkshire-Blackpool Pool partners, who Operate services from Leeds to Blackpool) pointed out that no customer witnesses were being called to support claims of being unable to travel on the present express service. And the British Railways representative also challenged the figures put before the Commissioners, stressing that Leeds-Blackpool traffic was falling.
Mr. J. T. Hazel, Of the West Riding Automobile Co. Ltd., said his company had seats vacant on all the CastlefordBlackpool services last year with the exception of the Saturday of the August Bank Holiday week-end, and felt that the number of passengers shown on the applicant's schedule could have been carried. The seat allocation for that particular Saturday this year was 450 (a 50 per cent increase on the 1963 allocation) and so far 442 had been booked.