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Railway Loss Intolerable, says Mr. Marples

6th July 1962, Page 44
6th July 1962
Page 44
Page 44, 6th July 1962 — Railway Loss Intolerable, says Mr. Marples
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

FROM OUR PARLIAMENTARY CORRESPONDENT

WE in this country have to be ruthlessly efficient to survive . . ." this was Mr. Marples' view of the railway losses, put forward during the Commons debate on the report and accounts of the British Transport Commission. Pointing out that the railway losses were £151 m. in 1961, and were estimated at £160 m. for 1962, Mr. Marples warned: " It is the brutal truth that a loss of this magnitude is intolerable."

But, even if the Minister was thinking " ruthlessly," he tried to be reassuring about the closing of railway lines—an attempt which did not in the least satisfy an Opposition highly critical of what Mr. Marples had to say.

Rumours about the Commission closing lines "off its own bat" were entirely wrong and untrue, he declared. There would be no passenger closures under the Transport Bill without the Minister's consent. The closures now taking place had been "in the pipeline" for a long time. "They are what I call the hopeless cases," he said.

The Government would not reach conclusions about closures until the last stage of Dr. Beeching's study of the workings of the railway system and its future prospects.

Within a more compact railway system there was a need for greater productivity and the more efficient use of assets, Mr. Marples went on. In 1961 the Commission had nearly a million freightcarrying vehicles which did only about 30 journeys in a year. This was not good enough. They must do more.

Dealing with British Road Services, the Minister pointed out that the receipts in 1961 were the highest since 1957. The .greater part of the net receipts of B.R.S. came from specialized activities in fields such as parcels and heavy haulage, and he looked forward to the expansion of Ibis type of profitable service.

Condemning the Government's transport. record, the Opposition Front Bench spokesman, Mr. George Strauss, asked how the Minister or Dr. Beeching proposed that the traffic which ought to be on the railways and was now on the roads was to be transferred to the railways from the roads.

It seemed that this could be done in only one of three ways, said Mr. Strauss —by Government measures such as were carried out in varying degrees on the Continent, by some restriction on C licences, or by a considerable reduction in rates which the railways were now asking for these traffics. If the reduction in rates were considerable, carrying these goods by rail might not then be a profitable transaction.

When Mr. Geoffrey Wilson . (Cons., Truro) interjected that under the Trans:, 1110. port Bill the Railways Board had the right to run its own services and extend its collection and delivery service, Mr. Strauss said he did not think that the freight which did not pay its way on the railways would do so if it was carried by road on the railways' own lorries at the same charges. If this would pay he did not know why such freight was not carried on British Railways' lorries at the moment.

Mr. W., R. Rees-Davies (Cons., Isle of Thanet) said the fact must be faced that in certain parts of the country a satisfactory road service was infinitely better than a railway service.

The present working surplus of British Road Services, said Mr. Wilson, was only £31-m., and even if that were quadrupled and many more lorries were nationalized, the figure would still be only £14m. Even if the £6m. working surplus of the buses were doubled, there would still only be £26m. to set off against the £87 million which was the working deficit of the railways.

To try to represent the railway deficit as something arising out of the partial denationalization of British Road Services in 1953 did not hold any water.

Winding up for the Opposition, Mr. Robert Mellish said transport was worse now than it had been in the history of our country, particularly on the railways. It was a tragic situation. When Labour returned to power it would go back to what it started in 1947, a co-ordinated transport policy.

Following him, Mr. John Hay, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, said that if the rail service was more efficient and more economic, those who were sending their goods by road would send them by rail.

He dashed any hopes that the Minister might call a halt to rail closures until the traffic studies were completed. The Minister was not willing to give such a direction, he said.


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