Railways ‘should be in the real world’

Press, 13 March 1986, Page 8

Railways ‘should be in the real world’

The Railways Corporation should be in the “real world” of commerce, said the president of the Road Transport Associatopn Mr Norman Bidwell, yesterday.

Mr Bidwell called for the release of the BoozAllen report, saying he was prompted by criticism of the road transport industry. The report proposes staff reductions of up to 4000 and the closing of railway workshops. Mr Bidwell said it was astonishing that "rail’s competitors have to live in the real world of commercial practice — and abide by its rules — while the taxpayers are being called on to support Railways’ losses.”

“We believe that the major changes which the Minister of Transport says will be needed may be facilitated by full public knowledge of the consultants’ report,” he said. The road transport industry had to adjust to the new transport environment which “apparently is proving too great a challenge for Railways.”

Mr Bidwell said that if a road transport operation were in the same kind of strife as Railways at present, its management would be called on by its creditors to reconstruct so that it could trade out of trouble, or go bankrupt. “Perhaps the same very normal commercial view should be taken of Railways," he said The secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, Mr Don Goodfellow, yesterday called for steps to restructure the transport industry.

“One of those would be to impose restrictions on road transport to give railways a fighting chance. The truckies should also be made to pay a fair price for using the road. They say they are but thery’re not,” he said.

The history of railways in New Zealand had been one of “shocking mismanagement” with political considerations always taking priority over economic and financial realities, he said. This was reflected in the current crisis being

faced by the Railways Corporation, which was now on the verge of bankruptcy. “Every time there’s a crisis like this, the reaction is to cut jobs and cut services. If it goes on like this I can see that within ten years, the New Zealand railway network will consist of the Main Trunk line, and the Bay of Plenty line. Everything else will have gone,” said Mr Goodfellow.

“Although we keep cutting jobs and services, there’s never any improvement in the situation. If anything, it just gets worse.” Mr Goodfellow said the last big mistake had been the way the railways had been turned into a corporation, while leaving it exposed to unresctricted competition from raod transport. “The situation we’re in now is not irreversible, but the politicians have to show some guts and realism and look at the economic factors. They’ve got to stop treating the railways as a plaything for politicians,” he said.