A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England

by Edwin A. Pratt

Motor transport could obviously not be adapted to the transport of 400,000,000 tons of minerals, and for these, at least, the railways would still be wanted. But the number of motor-vehicles necessary to deal with 109,000,000 tons of general merchandise would still be prodigious, apart from considerations of distance, time taken in transport, wear and tear of roads, and, also, of the question whether a locomotive, doing the work of many motors, would not be the cheaper unit in the conveyance of commodities carried in bulk on long or comparatively long hauls. The suburban delivery of parcels is one thing; the distribution, for example (as mentioned in a footnote on page [399]), of 1000 railway waggons of broccoli from Penzance, all over Great Britain, in a single week, is another.

In the matter of passenger traffic, while people of means may prefer to make such journeys as that from London to Scotland in their own motor-car, the railway will continue to form both the cheaper and the quicker means of travel for the great bulk of the population as distinct from private car-owners, whose number must needs be comparatively small.

It is in respect to urban and suburban traffic that motor-vehicles have their best chance of competing with the railways on any extensive scale; yet even here, and notwithstanding all that they are already doing, their limitations are no less evident.

Taking only one of the many railway termini in London, the average number of suburban passengers who arrive at the Liverpool Street station of the Great Eastern Railway Company every week-day (exclusive of 12,000 from places beyond the suburban district) is 81,000, and of these about 66,000 come by trains arriving, in rapid succession, up to 10 a.m. To convey 81,000 suburban dwellers by motor-omnibus instead of by train would necessitate 2382 journeys, assuming that every seat was occupied. On the basis of the average number of persons actually travelling in a motor-bus at one time, it would probably require 4000 motor-bus journeys to bring even the Great Eastern suburban passengers to town each day if they discarded train for bus, and the same number to take them back in the evening. So long, too, as a single locomotive on the Great Eastern suffices for a suburban train accommodating between 800 and 1000 passengers, the company are not likely to pull up their rails and provide tracks in their place for a vast "fleet" of motor-cars or motor-omnibuses.

In some instances tramways and motor-omnibuses have, undoubtedly, deprived the railways of considerable traffic, and certain local stations around London have even been closed in consequence. In other instances tramways and buses have been of advantage to the railways by relieving them of an amount of suburban traffic for which it might have been difficult for them fully to provide. But any general supplanting of railways by motor-vehicles is as improbable in the case of passenger travel as it is in that of goods transport. Motor-vehicles are certain to become still more serious rivals of the railways than they are already, but they are not likely to render them obsolete; and, taking the country as a whole, the "bulk of the traffic" may be expected still to go by rail, motor-vehicles notwithstanding.

Although, at the outset, some of the railway companies were disposed to regard the motor as a rather dangerous rival, the most enterprising have themselves adopted various forms of motor-vehicles, alike for establishing direct communication between country stations and outlying districts unprovided with branch lines, for enabling passengers arriving in London to pass readily from the terminus of one company to that of another, and for the collection and delivery of goods.

In regard, again, to the outlook for the future, important possibilities were foreshadowed by a letter addressed to "The Times" of August 23, 1911, by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, concerning "Road Transport during Strikes." The hope of the leaders of the then recent railway strike had, of course, been to produce such a paralysis in the transport arrangements of the country that the railway companies would have been forced, owing to the resultant loss, dislocation of traffic, and, possibly, actual famine conditions, to surrender to all the demands made upon them. While the attempt failed on that occasion—thanks to the loyalty of the majority of the workers, the almost complete lack of public sympathy with the strikers, and, also, the employment of troops for the protection of the railways—there will always be the possibility of a renewal of the attempt. Pointing, therefore, to the large number of motorists in the United Kingdom, and mentioning, also, that there are, in addition, at least 10,000 commercial motor-vehicles as well, mostly running in or near the larger industrial centres, Lord Montagu wrote that, if supported by the Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association and Motor Union and assisted by his brother motorists in general, he would undertake in the case of a national emergency to carry out the following operations:

(1) The carriage of all mails where railways are now used.

(2) The supply of milk, ice and necessaries to all hospitals and nursing homes.

(3) The supply of milk, fish and perishable produce to London and other large towns.