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Mr. Good Announces Tripartite Meeting With Dr. Beeching
Page 7
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DR. BEECHING is to meet the Road Haulage Association and British Road Services in the near future to talk over the effect his rail plans will have on road transport, said Mr. D. 0. Good, national chairman of the Road Haulage Association at the Western area's annual dinner at Bristol.
"We are looking forward very much to investigating and perhaps resolving this age-old problem of the internal transport of this country "> he said, "and I am happy to anticipate that if we are left alone beyond the realms of politics, we. as professional hauliers, will be able to solve what the politicians have been trying to solve for so long."
The Association welcomed the Beeching Report, Mr. Good continued, but with one or two reservations. It had no wish to see the railways drag on as the sick man of transport, but would much prefer to see them take their place at the haulier's side in a determined campaign to obtain traffic fairly.
"Co-operation did not mean there would not also be fierce competition. All we ask here is that it should be fair; that there should be no hidden subsidies or cut-throat competition, and that we ourselves should be given reasonable opportunity to expand our services to meet the increasing and varied demands of our customers."
Dealing specifically with the details of the Beeching Report, Mr. Good said that
apparently Dr. Beechirig had gone to a large number of traders and manufacturers who gave him information about the means by which some 305 million tons of their mineral and merchandize traffic was carried fa 1960. The railways. apparently, carried 82 million tons and, of the remainder there were 93 million tons that the railways felt they might like the opportunity of carrying. Out of this 93 million, approximately 75 million tons were almost equally divided botween hauliers and C licence operators.
"It now turns out that the railways are even more choosy ", Mr. Good observed. The traffic they coveted most of all amounted to no more than 24 million tons. But was this really the end of the story, he asked?
" We can see no reason why the Beeching Plan should not be followed to a further conclusion. Just as much traffic again as the railways are seeking to capture, and which is now carried under C licence, could be taken over either by hauliers or the railways if they work together on the basis of co-operation as between equal partners, and, as a necessary corollary of this, if there were a somewhat more expansive licensing system."
R.H.A. Rates Committee THE rates committee of the Road Haulage Association is meeting on the afternoon of Thursday, April 25.