ROAD AND RAIL

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 67, 16 September 1922, Page 19

ROAD AND RAIL

COMPETING FOR TRAFFIC

EACH HAS ITS SPHERE

THE BRITISH PROBLEM.

New Zealand has lately been. much,. concerned" at the competition <*f motor transport with the railways. 1 There lias been Bimilaa experience of this competition in England, but, with this difference, that the English railways are not State-owned. In an. article in "The Times," which ia summarised below, Jjord Montagu of Beaulieu, an authority upon road transport, state* the problem as it appears.

Recent events show that the railway companies ate becoming a.wafe of, and alarmed at, the immense amount of taaffic which is nowadays road-borne instead of railway-borne." The companies we, .theretee, -beginning jo complain of "their" traffic bein£'tapped,-but as to how much traffic is "theirs," judged by the conditions of 19W, end how much is entirely jiew traffic, opinions differ. At anj rate, all inland traffic 90 years ago wa, road" borne, and there is in the nature of tilings no proprietary interest in traffic, which will generally follow the cheapest and most convenient and sometimes the quickest route from'.dcor "to door. It must be'realised that while railway organisation is good, and hae been perfected as a result oi many years;' experience, there is, as yet, no proper orcaiiisation in regard to road transport, tniough such organisation is beginning '•5- crop up here and there, and will eventually, no doubt, embrace all the leading firms, so that return loa/ds may be th© rule and not the exception. , Tie wiser /heads in the railway world are ..therefore correct in ceasing to maintain the attitude of difference which hae recently prevailed in some railway board-room* that road transport does not aiid will not mattei, and most of the railway companies are now trying, to get from Parliament authority to run road-transport irrespective of whether the traffic conveyed originates on, or has to be conveyed in connection with, existing railway systems.

Throughout the recent summer of 1931 we havei seen road transport growing daily in passengers as well as goods, but there are epecia.l reasons why railways havt of late been severely handicapped. In the first-place, in /regard! to passengers, unwise, and inelastic Government control, through th« Ministry of Transport, has meant poor services and high, fares; secondly, we must -remember that the coal strike necessarily limited very severely the services run; and, thirdly, the unusually fine weather wKich has prevailed all the summer ever since April must be responsible for the fact that thousands have preferred to travel by road rather than,by train, which would no* have been the case had the summer been wet and cold as in 1920. Everything, therefore, dtaring th« last six months has been in favour of road as against rail passenger transport. Future summers may not be as fine, and now that fee paralysing effect of Government control and State interference has to a large extent disappeared, though it has not entirely ceaeed,/owing to oertair .powers,left in the Railway Act, this potent 'cauee of trouble is at 'any rate negligible compared with a year »g*. , „,-NEW,,T^APFIO.. : „;| Let iffl &w see "iti whisS'way metthani- ! cal road transport can be ueed to the beat advantage compared with railway' transport, or where there,is.at the moment no other form of transport." To begin with, much of this new, traffic by road, interfere* but little with railway traffic It in entirely new dn Ncharacteir. If the map be, looked at it will be seen that irom London and other large towns railways radiate like the gossamer threads in a spidier^s.web in every direction.'But there is this difference, that whereas the spider's web has intersecting threads joining up the radiating' filaments all round the circle, and. forming complete circles at short intervals outward*, from-' th< centre, there are but very few cir-. cular lines of railway round/large towns except in the cage of London iteelf, the only complete parallel being that known as the Inner Circle Railway./ There is, therefore, 1 apart from, railway cnmpefrition, a great opening- for motor-coach' services by_ merely coupling, up centres of comparatively large population with -each other, • between which, as any map will show, no'rail'comraunication exists-or is likely to exist. In" other- words, "where railways cannot, for . reasons good or bad; give proper intercommunication, there goods , and passengers should go by roan, for at,the cost oi railway building and labour to-day it would never pay to make a railway between most of these points. Secondly, we come! to districts or towns jiot of first-class importance' which are"served bj a railway, but have no station near and no convenient' or fast service to London or the next town. Thirdly, ,we must consider the large number of towns of considerable eize in the Midlands and th© North, which are either only connected ;by branch lines providing inadequate services or eke are not connected directly at all. HOLIDAY TRAVEL. There is .._ another reason why road transport as regards passenger services is likelj to become more popular.,, The" people of this, countryf. are discovering with delight their own land: They are beginning to appreciate the fact .that England,'- Wales, arid Scotland Vcontain some of the most beautiful prospects-r k use an old arid expressive term—that can b e seen anywhere, and that-to. enjoya holiday or a tour ,it is inadvisable to go quickly or to select the most rapid means of communication like the express trairj. They are finding out "that th-a journey to and from their holiday haunts can be made a source of intense pleasure, and actually- become one of the pleaeantest parts of the outing. If you watc): n. passing train, fast or 1 slowj you.will see; the majority of the passengers reading their newspaper? or magazines; not looking ■at the surround-, ing scenery. . But the reverse' is the habit by road. I do not know that I have ever seen anyone giving more than a casual glance at a newspaper when travelling byroad—for, wonderful as the words of men may be in print, the works of God and, man we; more wonderful, j This attraction, the power of being able j to see and take in the .country as you paEs thTough, has beer, realised by sueli clever railway companies as the Canadian Pacific Railway^ which run "observatiort." cars over many miles of track which abound in attractive, natural features. ' If you come to think of it, from a railway-carriage window, sitting in a oornei seat, you can at-best see only about one-quarter of the full circle of possible view, or 90 out of the possible 560 degrees of the' country. To be able to see out all round the horizon at not too fast a speed is an advantage inherent in road transport with which the railway compartment, however comfortable, cannot compete, or at any rate only in an inferior degree. -.'■'. GREATER, MOBILITY, Th«h there is another attribute of road transport in which it has the- advantage of rail transport without any possibility of competition. I mean mobility. The motor-bus or motor-coach can run iri the

streets of a town one day, over regular routes backwards and forwards,,, a few miles out and a few miles home, The next day it can take youT Lancastrian to Blackpool, your Pudsey man to Scar* borough, the "Glasgie body" to, the Ayrshire coast, and the Londoner to a hundred places on the sea coast, ov, if he pretsrs, to picturesque and historic places like the New Forest, Stratford-on-Avon, or the whaledbacked Downs on t Saturdays and Sundays. Again, as the population shifts, as one suburb grows and another diminishes in importance, road transport can suit itself day by day to the changing conditions. RAILWAY ENTERPRISE. The fact is, there are neutral spheres of successful'operation both for the railway and. the road vehicle. In some cases—indeed in" a great many cases^the Toad traffic now being developed is new traffic, and does not belong by use or prescriptive right to the railways. -In other oasee road transport is undoubtedly taking traffia from the railways, partly because it is a cheaper means of conveyance from door to door, and partly because it is quicker in the case of goods and more interesting: and direct in the case of passertgene. But the railway* are now showing great enterprise, and are evidently determined to attract all the traffic possible. New, more coravenient, and faster trains are being put into operation, some pre-war concessions, such as reduced week-end fares, are being granted, and lower rates on passenger traffic are in contemplation. The competition of the roadhas certainly stimulated', and may yet save, the railway's from bepoirv ing sleepy and stereotyped, a tendency distinctly observed until lately. Again, if times of starting are standardised, where possible following th* excellent example of the London and South-West-ern Railways, more people will remember and tend to use railway services. .. v "A-NEW PHASE." In the same issue of "The Times'' a correspondent writes : The competition between the road, transport industry and th© railways has entered on a new phase Recently the National Road Transport Clearing House, Ltd., an organisation having.its headquarters in London and branches in several country" towns, has addressed a letter to Chambers of Commerce, urging them to use their influence in giving road transport firms th« carriage of. goods in preference to rail transport.' ' In some cases the Chambera of Commerce ha.ye asked their members to support the. road industry as agaJnst the railways. The road trausppr't industry is concentrating its efforts on the carriage of goods in Glasses 1 to 5 in the railway classification, and leaving to the railway companies- entirely the conveyance of coal and raw material, which are carried at the lowest' rates under Classes A, B, and C, and are 1 not so profitable as the carriage of general merchandise. On inquiry in railway circles 1 as to their attitude in countering the new attempt of the road industry., to. take th© best paying traffic by road, it is understood that if the efforts of 'the Road Transport . Clearing ; House' were to materialise it would inevitably lead to an application to the Railway Rates Tri- | bunal for a general increase in rates to comply with their statutory obligations to provide the.standard net revenue of 1913. ■; ' ' . i

Increased railway rates means a double burden to the trader,- as, in addition, he must asj'a ratepayer pay excessive local rates towards the upkeep of the roads. Parliament has decreedi that the railway services must be paramount. At present th© road- transport industry is not only receiving financial support from tie railways and the local ratepayers, but/it will receive assistance in the making of new roads from ~tti« general taxpayer to relieve unemployment. Every penny spent on laying down railway tracks has been provided by private enterprise. The road motor industry should, not derive soma portion of their profits at the hands of the taxpayer. ■-..■'