Independent haulier favours
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Freightliners By JOHN DARKER AMONG the first private hauliers to use the Freightliner service in London, J. Cosies and Son Ltd., of Chiswick Common Road, London W4, is convinced that Freightliners are "a natural". On Monday its two-way service between London and Yorkshire was started. Conies and Son is part of the old-established Holdsworth Group with branches in London, Leeds and Halifax and regular flows of traffic passing mainly between London and Yorkshire.
For several months there have been frank discussions with British Railways as to the possible use by the Holdsworth companies of Freightliner services, collection and delivery work being done by Coales and Son in London and its associated road haulage company in Yorkshire.
Mr. Peter Walker, manager of Coales Transport, showed me a file of correspondence with British Railways, and I was impressed with the interchanges. "We have been critical of the railways' inability to provide us with return Freightliner services to Manchester", said Mr. Walker. "There has been spare capacity on the northbound service but insufficient capacity for regular southbound movements. We have been trying since March 10 to move traffic to and from Manchester by Freightliner and only today has it proved possible."
Mr. Walker was gratified by the number of inquiries he had received from British Railways, on behalf of their customers, for the delivery of containers ex London terminals.
Mr. Walker showed me copies of his quotation letters to British Railways customers, with copies to the relevant BR divisional office. "Good faith all round is implicit in our approach", he told me. "We are very keen to prove to BR we can do the collection and delivery work at both ends of a Freightliner service efficiently. We are sending two
containers nightly in each direction on the Leeds service and hope to see this expand. Costs (on scale B, which offers a reduced rate for three or more containers) work outslightly lower than our previous night trunk vehicles. We regard our co-operation in the Freightliner service as a natural development and welcome the help we've had from BR. We've undertaken not to poach their customers and we'd like them to reciprocate."
Mr. J. C. Coales, managing director of Holdsworth Road Services, said he felt the wider use of Freightliners by independent hauliers would contribute to the demise of clearing houses. "If a clearing house can't get vehicles it will have to give up. The very low haulage rates for traffic ex London should be improved when Freightliner services expand."
In the last 20 months, 1,200 customers have dispatched some 68,000 containers on inter-city services. The new Willesden terminal opened today by Mr. John Morris, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, although it will not be operational until August 29—will add services to Cardiff and Margarn and provide additional capacity on Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow routes. I understand that only around 300 customers use the Freightliners regularly—the majority send odd containers on the highest scale A rate.
The first Freightliner from the North East left for London on Monday night. Reduced to half its planned size by the dispute at the Stratford rail terminal it was dispatched from the new Tyneside terminal at Follingsby, Co. Durham, for the six-hour journey.
The train was cut from 10 to five wagons but no customers were turned away. The service runs five days a week.