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Kill the rail myth says FTA official
Page 33
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• The myth that rail transport could take the place of road as the prime distributor of freight in the UK should be killed once and for all. Mr E. Brown, secretary of the Freight Transport Association northern division, told meetings in Newcastle upon Tyne and Carlisle to which the general public and local environmentalists were also invited. If, by waving a magic wand, he said, rail freight could be increased by 50 per cent, the reduction in lorries would be absorbed within two years by normal growth. On the trunk roads the reduction in the number of lorries would hardly be noticed. In the towns the numbers of delivery vehicles transhipping to and from railheads pose their own substantial problems.
Of 1-im goods vehicles on UK roads 1m were light vans; and only 60,000 lorries were over 8 tons, said Mr Brown, who emphasized that the FTA was just as concerned with improving the environment as with distribution efficiency. What worried the Association was that so many people seemed concerned only with preserving the environment regardless of other effects like preserving urban life, regional policy, the cost of living and the competitiveness of UK exports.
The right balance was partly a matter of vehicle design, international standards on noise and smoke, responsible operation of vehicles, good driving, lorry parks, new by-passes and roads, traffic management and research. The FTA was actively co-operating in the plan for the systems of advisory. routes — but far from being an alternative to building roads, the scheme could never seriously get off the ground without them.
The "in town" problem could not be solved by compelling all deliveries to be made at night, or prohibiting all but light vans from delivering into city centres — or, a sophistication of the latter, all goods compulsorily being transhipped into light vans on town perimeters. This was not to say night deliveries were impracticable. Some FTA members already serviced their shops at night and a good deal of night movement to wholesalers and depots took place.
Mr Brown told CM-that his meetings had been favourably received by the more militant critics of the road haulage industry and it was the PTA's intention to repeat his talk in other towns.