DELIVERING THE GOODS

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 48, 25 August 1922, Page 5

DELIVERING THE GOODS

SCOPE FOR THE TRAMWAYS

PROBLEMS OF CITY TRANSPORT.

(By "Autos.")

Transport is the business of delivering the goods, and when you s«e the little Ford trucks fussing about th* streets, the big lorries lumbering along, Him tramway freight car curvetting over the rails out to the suburbs, the ponderous draught horses pulling their loads, and the spidery express trotting along th» quays—you know there is something doing in the transport' line. Unfortunately not so much now as there ueed to be a year or bo ago, for, when other business in quiet, transport has to tak« a rest too. That seems to be the secret of the agitation to put an end to the tramway freight car service, which, like the railways, the shipping, and other means of delivering the goods, ie suffering somewhat, from the dearth of goods tib deliver. The whole business is worth, looking into. A BOON IN ITS DAY. When the freight service on the train j system was started, about twelve year* j ago, if it wa» a* long ago as that, things wers very different. The motor-lorry had not yet come into general use, andl the means of transport out 'to the growing eubuTba were certainly inadequate, and offered no scope for growth. All ■suburban development depends on transport facilities for man and goods, and the city was naturally interested in seeing that its suburbs, on which, it relied for its tramway revenue, did not go short of the things necessary for a decent life at a reasonable cost. So the establishment of the tramway freight service 1 proved a real boon to the suburban resident. The cheapness of rail transport enabled grocers and other tradesmen to do business on their own account successfully in the suburbs, and the system of parcel delivery was useful to suburbanite shopping in the city. NUCLEUS OF DISTRIBUTION. Things have changed cine* then. Instead of a handful of motor vehicles in the freight business, there are simply hundreds to-day, and, so far as adequacy of motor transport to cope with the demand is oonoOTiedi, there » not the slightest doubt that it could deliver the goods, and in that particular respect the tramway serviot is only one among many competitors. If (he tramway authorities were to go oat of the freight business tomorrow, the city, could still carry on, ' but whether at the same cost is another matter. That this is only one aspect, and! not the whole, is proved by the attitude of business men as represented in the Chambers of Commerce, who have expressed themselves emphatically against the proposed discontinuance of the tramway freight service. They know it serves a very useful purpose in tihe distribution and delivery of goods; they know it is the nucleus of a regular distributing system, wit-hiri1 its limitations an effective link in the genefral transport service, and therefore worth keeping; There is, indeed, an opinion that, so far from being discontinued, the service should be developed and extended. ' How this might be done is worth considering. BAIL TRANSPORT CHEAPER. First of all, it has been proved: that per ton mile rail transport is far cheaper than road transport by motor—this, of .course, quite independent of the factor of handling the goods. From' one given point to another, say, for instance, where a road parallels a railway, or along a road which carries a tTamway, tie transport by rail has it all the time, so far as mare cost is concerned. The writer had this fact brought home to him'during the war. During the Palestine campaign in 1918, while th« narrow gauge railways was being widened to broad gauge between Ludd and Jerusalem, the transport was entirely by, road, and it took about three hundred motor-lorries in one long convoy to cawy the > day's supplies from railhead to the Holy City. The cost of transport over an exceedingly hilly road must have been enormous. ' ■ ■, . Armies of Natives had to be employed continuously keeping the road in repair, Mid even then it went back under the burden of traffic. When the broad gauge was opened up, a couple of goods trains a day did the job at a. fraction of the cost. The same thing occurred ill the advance north from Jerusalem, when a light railway replaced about a couple of hundred motor-lorries and gave ths roads a rest. IDEALLY SITUATED. Particularly where electric traction is installed is rail transport cheaper, and more particularly still where you have a hilly locality with long grades on the, roads. It is on the hills that motor transport becomes additionally costly, and where electric traction gains. Wellington is ideally situated for a tramWay freight service, if it were only properly organised to distribute the goods. -This fact is quite well realised by the tramway authorities, and a few years ago such an organisation was outlined. ORGANISED SYSTEM. The scheme provided for a central depot in the city connected with the tramway system, and subsidiary depots in the suburbs on the tram routes. Goods would be collected by motor vehicles or otherwise in the central depot and dispatched by tramway freight car to their destinations in the suburbs, similar means operating for distribution from the suburban depots. The goods would be carried out in -bulk in the freight cars, and the intervening hills conquered by electric traction. The [motor vehicles would perform their function most economically generally along the level parts of the ' suburbs. There would, of course, be the disadvantage of rehandling, but laboursaving appliances in the depots might get. over .that successfully. This scheme might be worth the City Council's while considering even now. The service would be carried on wholly during the slack hours of the day, and would not interfere with the rush-hour traffic. FURTHER USES. There is. one further point. The Tramway 'Department makes a good deal of use of the freight service in one way or another, but the other departments of the big municipal business continue to conduct their transport on their own. The economy of rail transport admitted, why should riot the City Engineer's department transport the huge quantities of material it uses, road metal and so forth, from the quarries at least partly by rail? At) present every other kind of transport seems to bo used, from horse drays to steam wagons, and the sight of great draught horses in tandem tearing themselves to pioces to pull a paltry cartload of road metal over the Constable street hill into the city is rather saddening. A short linel from the j Lyall Bay terminus to the quarry con-' necting it with the tramway system would do away with all that. The same might be done with the quarry at South Karori. There are several old tramcars fit for conversion to this humble, but useful, service. ' The council seems to have made a •ignal success of the for more difficult

task of running a municipal milk service. Why should it not try its hand in organising a transport service to serve the public in another important branch of the community's life? Private transport agencies would, still find ample scope in work of a kind not suitable for municipal enterprise. ,