TRUCK SHORTAGE

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22141, 9 December 1941, Page 4

TRUCK SHORTAGE

Grain Carting In Busy

Season

Rationalisation Plan To Be Drawn Up

A statement that a rationalisation scheme is being drawn up to eliminate the “bottleneck" in unloading grain at flour mills, to even out deliveries and to relieve the pressure on railway trucks caused by congestion at the mills, was made by the No. 3 Transport Licensing Authority (Mr T. H. Langford) at a sitting at Timaru yesterday. "It is obivous to me that the Government will have to take some action,” Mr Langford said.

The shortage of trucks during the busy season was mentioned during the application of H. A. Davison, Pleasant Point, for an amendment to his goods service licence to enable him to operate in the Timaru borough.

Mr J. p. Steven, for the applicant, said that Davison was a railway feeder who, because of the shortage of trucks since the start of the war, was working under a disability. In the busy season, failing to get trucks, he was losing customers to Timaru operators who could take the produce direct to Timaru.

In evidence Davison said he had licences for the Geraldine, Levels and Mackenzie Counties, exclusive of the Timaru Borough. When trucks were unavailable he was forced to be idle, and on occasions when trucks were available, operators from Timaru and Temuka entered the district and carted to the mills. Shortage of Trucks Tire shortage of trucks last year was due not to inability to supply trucks, but because the railway could not accept loading for certain firms, said Mr G. H. McLean, representing the New Zealand Railways. Those firms had so many trucks under load that the railways could not let them have any more. If Davison got more trucks, similar inconvenience would be caused to others. The trucks were held up at their destinations as so much grain was being brought into the mills by lorries.

“We want some properly conceived plan put into operation, to concern the whole of the district," said Mi’ Langford. “In that way we would then get steadier loading than we have to-day.” If he allowed the applicant to cart grain into Timaru, he continued, it would not relieve the position in the slightest, and if he could stop Timaru carriers going to Pleasant Point and bringing in grain to clutter up the position in Timaru, he would do so.

Mr Steven: We take it that there is a scheme for rationalisation in the air.

Mr Langford: We have been on it for a long time. In view of the rationalisation scheme under way, Mr Steven applied for an adjournment of the application to a later sitting.

The adjournment was approved. The “bottle-neck" in the unloading of grain at the mills was again discussed during the application of E. Oliphant, Timaru, for an amendment to his goods service licence to provide for the issue of one additional vehicle authoritv for the cartage of goods in the Levels and Mackenzie Counties, including the borough of Timaru and that part of the Waimate County south of the Pareora River to Otaio station and west to the hills (subject to the 30 mile restriction). Oliphant explained that he sought only a seasonal licence for the busy season in the carting of grain and sheep. The application was adjourned.