Rail delays add to the grocery bills

Press, 19 August 1982, Page 22

Rail delays add to the grocery bills

Delays in rail delivery added dollars to the grocery bills of shoppers, said the Grocery Manufacturers’ Association recently.

The association’s executive officer, Mr E. G. Newman, said rail freight in its present form was not suited to the carriage of some grocery products. On many routes it was more expensive than road transport and it contained “massive hidden costs resulting from unpredictable transit times.”

"At any given time,” said Mr Newman, “there are tens of millions of dollars worth of grocery products either sitting in rail sidings or held in regional storage depots as reserve stock.”

The costs of holding stock

had become an increasingly large part •of the price of groceries, he said.

Mr Newman was commenting on the 150-kilometre railways protection zone which means that goods have to be sent by rail unless a special transport licence isgranted. If the protection was removed for grocery products he thought the Railways Corporation would be forced to be more competitive.

The Corporation needed a greater sense of urgency in its freight operations and, said Mr Newman, if the protection was removed it might be more inclined to bring its service up to “the requirements of modem commerce."