L'3 1 /4m handover How would you like to earn £31/4m and
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then hand it over to a competitor before you start . covering your running costs? Such is the unhappy situation which National Carriers have found themselves in every year since they began trading as NCL. By law, the yellow van men have to contribute £21/4m to the British Railways pension fund towards the pensions of ex-railway employees who never had any connection with NCL.
And if that were not bad enough, they also pay'a Elm towards British Railways' staff travel concession scheme, with only minimal benefit accruing to NCL staff who were at one time employed by the Railways Board.
The whole amount is equal to 5 per cent of NCL's operating costs and since the parcels sector of haulage found profits hard to come by in 1974, then that's a heavy subsidy from road to rail and one which you may think they should not be asked to make. I don't think they should, NFC don't think they should an I'm sure NCL don't think they should. Perhaps some bright young backbencher wishing to make his name in this session of Parliament will be able to convince Mr Mulley that it's wrong.
Roger, and out
Driving an articulated vehicle on Britain's roads is a darn sight trickier than piloting a BAC 111 passenger jet, says airline Captain Colin Dawson, one of the most unusual recruits to lorry driving ranks.
"At least in a jet you can put your feet up and leave the driving to your .co-pilots."
Colin, a pilot for 25 years and a casualty of the Court Lin collapse, is presently freelancing for Baldock hauliers. Freight Fast Transport Ltd, with the intention of quickly setting up his own business.
As a former chairman of his local BALPA committee, Colin's new profession has been followed with interest by the national press and television, and when, a few days ago, he took out his first big load on a RenTco trailer two dustcarts made by Shelvoke and Drewry, Letchworth -bound for Ireland, Anglia Television was there to film his departure.
It might he a bit slower, but lorry driving obviously has attractions for pilots, for one of Colin's former airline colleagues has also just. obtained his hgv licence — first time.
Get yours!
The calendars have been flooding in, in accustomed style. and CM's office walls already have a distressing number of events for 1975 marked up on them. It looks like another working year, lads.
Noticeable this time has been the severe reduction in lightly clad or unclad young females. Someone, though has pinched the charming 1974 Avon calendar which a colleague was planning to keep for 1975, so lacking are the ladies in 1975's general run of offerings.
Among the wall-brighteners, however, is one from Laycock, which I'm told is available to CM readers free if they care to drop a line to GKN Laycock Ltd, Archer Road, Millhouses, Sheffield S8 OJY.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all those folk who've sent us cards, calendars and diaries — and I hope they'll understand if we don't get around to acknowledging them all individually, there have been so many — and very useful too.
Keep hoping
I see that reports in some of the national press suggest that the National Freight Corporation is heading for a loss of between £8m and £9m — attributed to factors outside NFC control, such as strikes at customers' premises reducing demand, and disruption on the railways interfering with Freightliner and National Carriers operations.
A spokesman at NFC said this week: "Perhaps the speculation is a little premature. The financial year's not over yet."
Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
Watch it!
The van driver banned for life because he watched. a TV set in the passenger seat can perhaps consider himself lucky that the magistrates didn't impose a fine commensurate with the programme he was watching: "Six Million Dollar Man."
in case you think that a life ban was a bit harsh even though his TV watching caused the van he was driving to wander erratically to the danger of other traffic, perhaps I should add that he also pleaded guilty to five other charges and admitted 10 previous convictions!
Better reasons
Seems I did busmen less than justice with my story of psychiatric roleplaying (this column, December 20). The people for whom the treatment has been devised are suffering from forms of agoraphobia, and the roleplaying helps to give them confidence in meeting people — for example, in uniform.
To make the situations more realis-. tic, and therefore helpful, Greater Manchester Transport has now offered a bus with friendly driver and inspector for participation in the therapeutic sessions.
The Hawk