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bird's eye view
Page 56
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by the Hawk • Going places
Which comes first, in chicken-or-egg terms, the traffic or the vehicles? In one of the country's fastest-growing transport outfits it was, they tell me, the traffic which came first.
Freight Shipping International started operating in 1969, its only assets being directors with lots of know-how: they had no vehicles. Mike Druce, an ex Lep man and Bob Falconer, one-time Alltransport man, went out and got the traffic. During 1969 they built up a groupage service, bought 30 containers and semi-trailers and established an agency in Rotterdam. This year they'll be adding tractive units to their assets. Mike told us this week: "We started at the back end and worked our way forward, and that's precisely the direction in which we intend to keep moving—forward."
It all began, I understand, when Mike and his brother Norman, who are directors of an exhibition freight company, found there was little continuity of traffic in that sphere. Although they have now branched out into general haulage with FSI they have selected only a segment of Europe, and this is where they intend to concentrate their efforts.
• Glossy number one Out of the blue the National Freight Federation has produced its own journal, Freightway, and a very excellent publication it is too. Beautifully printed on nice shiny paper it runs to 28 pages, and has some very readable and informative articles about National Freight Corporation companies and people.
I was particularly interested to learn, from an article written by NCL managing director Harry Kinsey that his company is now the biggest single customer of Freightliners Ltd, and that it is now offering its own chartered overnight trains as an NC L Express Service.
Barry Wild comes through very typically in an article devoted to his company (Harold Wood and Sons) eye-catchingly titled "Things that flash, bang, poison or corrode.. ." Don't let the anti road transport lobby get hold of phrases like that; they have a habit of contorting the meaning.
II Open and shut case
You can't win them all—as parcels carriers in London have learned in recent months. They tell me there is an unwritten law among traffic wardens that if a vehicle delivering packages is parked on a yellow line with its back doors open then they do not issue a parking ticket. There is, however, a written law among parcels carriers that their drivers should ensure that the back doors are locked at all times when the vehicle is unattended, to prevent pilfering.
The position now is that if the driver carries out his employer's instruction the wardens descend, whereas if they try to avoid the parking ticket the thieves descend. It looks as if the parcels boys cannot win at all.
• Powerful pieces
I see that culture is getting a strong industrial boost in Peterborough. On May 27 Perkins Engines Group is co-sponsoring a concert at which Sir John Barbirolli is to conduct the Halle Orchestra in the cathedral. This venture follows a successful Yehudi Menuhin industrial concert at the same place last June, and again Perkins expect the event to attract a capacity audience of 1,500, despite the fact that the programme has yet to be announced.
They hope to be joined by another seven local firms in the sponsorship.
• Haulage aid Another new publication is on the stocks, the RHA tells me. It is Haulage Manual, which the association plans to publish next year for the first time, and which is intended as an annual to help operators understand legislation and keep them informed of developments in engineering and operating practices. I gather it is intended to be an exceptionally readable book which invites the haulier to browse. A noble objective. • Collectors' corner
Those whose hobby is collecting antique jewellery or silver suffer few problems on the score of accommodation, an aspect that is of considerable concern to enthusiasts who specialize in the preservation of antique transport. This has been one of the problems of the Manchester Transport Museum Society, I am told by Clifford Taylor, a member of SELNEC PTE traffic staff at Rochdale, and MTMS founder and secretary. One of their prize specimens is an open-ended single-deck tram which was retired in 1930 and somehow landed in a field over the Yorkshire border.
After its rescue by the Society some £2000 and much time was spent on the job of restoration. For five years it has stood in a Manchester Corporation bus garage but the space there is now required. Finding a new home for the eight-ton 36-footer has involved a long hunt but the tram has been given a new resting place by Geoffrey Thomas, managing director of Springfield Warehousing and Wharfage Ltd, at Trafford Park. It was delivered there last week by a semi low-loader of Beck and Pollitzer Manchester Ltd. In its heyday No. 765 ran on Manchester 53 route, a long semi-circular service that connected various inner suburbs and represented 8 per cent of the undertaking's mileage.