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Co-operation Yields Results in Beet Haulage
Page 58
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By A. Day
Chairman, Sugar Beet Group, R.11. A.
MOST agricultural traffic is seasonal. In the case of sugar beet the contrast between the slack period and the three months of continuous activity which constitute the season is particularly dramatic.
In the early autumn the 18 factories operated by the 13ritish Sugar Corporation suddenly develop an appetite which as suddenly disappears three months later. While it lasts, care must be taken to ensure that the flow of sugar beet into each factory is sufficient to keep the work of processing going at full pitch for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but not so great as to exceed the storage capacity of the silos into which the raw material is delivered.
A flexible, personal and highly efficient service is, therefore, demanded of the carrier. It is no wonder that approximately 34m. tons out of the total of 44m. tons of sugar beet grown in this country are conveyed to the factory by road transport, to a large extent by carriers under free enterprise.
It is, of course, an illusion to suppose that private operators are completely unorganized. Where co-operation is necessary, the appropriate machinery is set up. During the past year such liaison machinery has been established locally between hauliers, farmers and factories. It is proving extremely useful in settling the difficulties that are bound to arise from time to time.
Largely as a result of discussion at various liaison committee meetings, the long lines of vehicles waiting to enter the factories have not been so much in evidence during the past season. It would, perhaps, be impossible to eliminate waiting time. The weighing, checking and unloading of the vehicles all take time, and beyond a certain limit any attempt to regulate too closely their time of arrival at the factory would raise several other problems at the farmers' end.
The undoubted improvement that has taken place in the turn-round of logics represents a substantial contribution to the efficiency of the sugar-beet campaign and an achievement for the liaison committees concerned.
Although some hauliers who formerly specialized in the carriage of sugar beet were taken over by the State, nationalization has not had much effect on this traffic.
It is significant that the Road Haulage Executive have made no attempt to interfere with the organization of the transport which has for a long time been arranged satisfactorily between the British Sugar Corporation and the Road Haulage Association. The R.H.E. have, of course, had their share of the beet traffic, but both the R.H.E. and the Railway Executive have worked in conjunction with the Association, and in particular have accepted the Association's published schedule of rates.
The greater part of the beet traffic by road is short-distance work. Where somewhat longer hauls have been necessary, the absurd 25-mile limit has seemed more absurd than ever. It is pleasant to be able to record that for the most part permits have readily been given for this type of work.