WILL THE ROAD BEAT THERAIL?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18018, 5 November 1920, Page 2

WILL THE ROAD BEAT THERAIL?

THE GREAT FUTURE OF MOTOtI TRANSPORT. (By F. A. McKenzie ,who discusses the effects of the coming enormous development of motor transport m tile Mother Country). This is the year of the open road. The motor coach —please do not call it a charabanc—has come into its own, and has opened up all rural England to the townsman as never before. Not so long ago motoring was the rich man’s luxury. Then it became the pleasure of the prosperous middle class. Today it is the joy of the worker. Summer travel to the sea has been transformed from a weariness to a delight, for anvone who pleases can now make it by highway in place of rail. Motoring has become democratised. Simultaneously, big new schemes for tiie conveyance of goods by road are developing. We are on the eve of vast fresh motor delivery services that will, with interchanging points, cover the country. How is all this going to affect the railways Prophets a're seeing visions of idle goods yards, empty passenger trains, rust-eaten lines of rails. The road services, they claim, will be able to undersell the. railways. Even Mr J. H. Thomas, one of the sanest and most far-seeing of Labour leaders, evidently fears the effect upon railwaymen's wages. There are already signs of a movement to crush out this new road traffic by special legislation. Advocates of railway nationalisation say that if the railways are taken over by the State road goods traffic must Ije placed under the same control. " The fear that, road traffic will prove a dangerous rival to railways is absurdIt comes not as an opponent or dangerous rival of the railway, but as available auxiliary. This whole matter—so fair as the hauling of heavy freight was concerned —was worked out once for all by our experiences in Northern France during the war. Our authorities started out with the idea that the best way to carry- supplies from the coast to the front was by motor trollies. Thousands of trucks were sent to France and the system given an exhausive trial. It was found that it took 200 motor trollies to do the work of one train. This meant that 400 men had to be employed in place of four. For every shilling that rail haulage would have cost, the motors, taking depreciation, renewals, and labour into count cost nearly £l. The iine roads of Northern France and Belgium were torn up by the traffic, and an army of men had to be employed all the time in repairing them. Eventually we adopted a system of rail and light tramway haulage, with the motor truck as a supplementary service. M'e shall find that motor road services are excellent for short hauls of goods of moderate bulk, for regularly carrying consignments from one fixed I point to another, and for delivering perishable goods quickly. But they can | never compete with the railways for the | haulage of heavy freight over Jong distances. Within these limitations, however, we may well see the road deliveries l>econte in a short time twenty-fold what they are now. Motor passenger coach service will be mainly for summer and for pleasure only, save for short distance rides. A drive in an open motor coach is deligntful iu August; but I would not care for it on most days in January. A journey by road by any of the advertised services to the sea takes about three times as long as by fast train. The time of the journey will tend to become longer as the roads become more congested. Motor coaches cannot handle passengers’ luggage, apart from small quantities, except at greatly increased cost. We shall have plenty for the raiyways to do and plenty for the road motors. The competition of the motors for parcels delivery will quicken the railway services and the public will benefit The competition of the summer road passenger coaches will force the railways to redevelop their excursion services. It must be remembered that the railways can always underbid the motores. Their running costs are far less. Road traffic is bound to increase many-fold. But our main roads are not capable of taking any great increase. They are frequently taxed to their maximum capacity already. During the recent holidays, for instance, long stretches of the Brighton road were filled with an unbroken line of cars, crawling along, with no room to pass, having to advance at the speed of the slowest. If this is happening today. W’hen the post-war road motors have barely got to work, what will be the condition of things in a year or two, when we shall have at least twice as many private motor cars and probably four or five times as many motor lorries and motor coaches on the road? I can imagine what the state of affairs will be, for I have lived in districts in America where ever ysecond family has its automobiles. There on Sundays on the main roads leading out of the cities, your car moves at a snail’s pace, one of an endless line. DIRECT TRADE FOR VILLAGE PRODUCE. If the glories of the open road are to be maintained, we need an immediate and far-reaching scheme for widening and improving our national roads. Every thousand pounds wisely laid out on main road improvement now will save the nation twice that sum, in the avoidance of lost time and congestion, within ten years. What is going to be the effect of this greatly increased road traffic on the country itself? At present country residents are groaning under the invasion of their rural quiet by rowdy gangs of townsmen swooping down on them in mtor coaches. The noisy songs, ths horseplay, the litter from their packages of sandwiches cause offence. These things will soon right them, selves. It is good that the choicest beauty spots of rural England should become known to town workers. The new movement will bring still further prosperity to our village, and, if country people take advantage ot their opportunities, will lead to a large amount of direct trade between country growers and town consumers. Here again, I appeal to what I have seen across the Atlantic. There the people in many rural settlements combine to open a booth on the roadside. They display their own produce and sell it on the spot, or deliver it if ordered. Middlemen are eliminated, the grow-er receives more, and the consumer obtain’s fresher, if not cheaper, supplies. We could use this plan for reviving and giving prosperity to many old British village industries. The democratisation of motoring is a good thing. It is for us to take care that busybody politicians do not attempt, by what wuld be essentially class legislation, to suppress it.