Railways and the Road.
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FOLLOWING upon the arguments advanced at the Leeds meeting of the Institute of Transport ' by Mr. Shrapnell-Smitleellest blows in the great fight for and against the grant of extended road powers to the railways have been failing thick and fast, and interest .must for the present be concentrated uponthe attitude, of traders and merchants and their representative organizations, which are being expressed through the medium of letters to the daily papers. These are useful' because they are bringing to light some of the weapons of the railway companies 'and exposing their strength. •
Facilities.will no doubt be .given by the 'Cabinet for the first reading of the Railway Bills soon after the reply to the King's Speech has been debated, and by the end of February or early in March the second reading will he reached.Here the first real fight will take place, and it is to be hoped thatample discussion will be allowed, for it would be better, if the Bills are to be thrown out, for this to take place on the second reading, so as to avoid the tremendous expenditure that consideration in committee would entail. However, the probability of the Bills reaching the committee stage is fairly high, and if they survive that ordeal their chances of becoming Acts of Parliament may be regarded as certain.
It has been interesting to read some of the opinions expressed. Almost without exception considerable bias is shown on every hand, but this might, perhaps, have been expected in the early days of the fight, when the moderate people 'hold their hands. and tongues.
The best argument so far advanced by the advocates of the railway point of view is that, as an established medium of traffic, the railway should not be debarred from participation in any new development, but should be allowed to employ it in order to be able to supply the public with the hest possible service. They are not on such firm ground when they refer to the railway contribution to local taxation and to highway rates. This contribution is by no means high.
How the Railways Gained Their Monopoly of Traffic.
NOT. to..be overlooked is the fact that the •railway companies have been given monopolies over a certain farm of traffic. When they were .01.7
established they crushed the long-distance haulier, and they purchased the canals and let them fall into disuse. This was a use of power which must be remembered, for, whilst road transport has grown up in the past ten years partly at the expense of the railway, it has done so on sheer merit, because it meets certain requirements of goods transport better than the railway and because it has developed passenger travel in a way and in directions of which railways have not been capable. We refer particularly to motor coach touring and to bus-travel facilities. The railways, as the result of the advance in mechanical engineering, have not been able to hold the monopoly they gained when they closed the canals.
The fear is that if the railways are given the powers for which they ask they will live on the long-distance traffic, of which they have a monopoly, and use their powers to crush competition from the lorry, coach and bus as they crushed the canals. Competition from road transpdrt mast be allowed to act as an incentive to the railways to give better service: their efforts will then serve to develop traffic.
In lighting, the case is analogous : the introduction of gas was seen to be the doom of the candle, and, of electric light, the death-knell of gas. What, however, do we find to be the case? More gas and more candles are made to-day than ever, the reason being that people are educated to appreciate the value of light. No -protective legislation was proposed either for the candle or for coal-gas : it should not be necessary for transport.
Metal or Wood for Body Construction ?
THE all-metal body has not yet made great progress either for goods or passenger vehicles, and whether this is due to conservatism amongst the coachbuilders. to lack of confidence or the opinion that metal is inferior to wood is somewhat difficult to any; possibly it is due to the buyers, as wood has been thoroughly tried out as a material for the purpose, whereas, to many, metal in bodywork, except for panelling, is an unknown quantity, and, as such, is apt to be looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion.
Both metal and wood possess advantages and
disadvantages. With metal, for instance, one cannot go very far wrong in the selection, whereas only experts can pick out suitable woods, and such experts are not readily available owing to the vast increases in commefeial bodybuilding which have taken place during recent years.
• It may be said with truth that a body carefully constructed of the best qualities of timber is second to none, except for a few particular uses, but where the timber is in doubt the all-metal type ma Y prove itself to be preferable.
We must -remember that the ever-increasing call is likely to cause a dearth in the best timber— possibly at no very distant date—and already • prices have risen appreciably, with the result that more cheap foreign material has had to be employed. This is quite apart from the post-war shortage of seasoned materials. Metal, OD the other hand, is available in almost unlimited quantities, and can he* supplied in a large measure by home industries, thus providing more' work and utilizing fuel for which it is important to find markets.
In nearly every body Metal is already used to a fair extent for brackets, etc., and where panel% of unusually large area have,to be employed'metal presents the great advantage of almost complete freedom from splitting. Such panels are, however, apt to cause disagreeable drumming unless the design of the body has been thought out most carefully, and it may be that a combined material, such as armoured plywood, is to be preferred.
Claims are made for certain classes of timber in respect of the facility with which they can be berit, and yet there is a strong modern tendency to cut curved pieces from the solid, because this avoids any tendency for the material to resume its original shape, which tendency sometimes shows itself under the influence of damp or heat.
Much use is already being made of metal for panels which are required to take a large curvature, as at corners, and in some such instances it would not be a very long step to obtain a body completely built of metal.
In our opinion, the chief potentialities of the metal body lie in the direction of the more extended use of the lighter alloys, which will give great strength combined with low weight, but it is important that the cost should not be disproportionate to the advantages obtained.