TRANSPORT RAILWAYS AND AIR

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 79, 27 December 1928, Page 8

TRANSPORT RAILWAYS AND AIR

BRITISH COMPANIES MOVE Dominion Special Service. London, November 15. The railways are considering quite seriously the question of promoting a private Bill to obtain power to undertake transport by air. Sir Josiah Stamp s reference to this subject recently was not a mere rhetorical flourish. The railways want to be able to handle any sort of traffic the future may oiler, and experience over the acquisition of road-running powers this year has taught that delay in making preparation may be exceedingly costly. A hundred years ago railways could have had road powers for the asking, but in those days road traffic was consided an out-moded form of transport; It has cost the companies many thousands of pounds to repair that neglect. The wideawake railway executives of to-day are determined as a first step that their successors shall not have cause to reproach them with lack of foresight about air transport. Owing to the lack of aerodromes in the provinces, air transport for,internal communications as yet has small economic value, and railway experts are not setting their option against the considered judgment of the ehief commercial air transport concern, who decided long ago against internal air lines in this country. But the future mav open up a different prospect, and the railways do not want again to have to fight for powers against vested interests. A private railway Bill for this purpose may not be promoted this session, but it is likely to be put forward in the early days of the new Parliament.