Commuter City by David Wragg

Author:David Wragg [Wragg, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: TRA000000
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781844685264
Publisher: Wharncliffe
Published: 2010-09-18T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Grouping and Recession

Omnibuses are everybody’s vehicle, and the days have long gone by when people of distinction were almost ashamed to be seen riding in one, and ladies blushed at the thought.

The Wonder Book of Motors, 1927

The end of the Great War came complete with uncertainties for transport operators. The railways were still under the control of the Railway Executive Committee, but pre-war there had been a re-awakening of calls for nationalisation and a thorough investigation had only been prevented by the outbreak of war.

What no one could have foreseen was that competition from road transport was to become more serious for the railways, and indeed for the established bus operators, as men were discharged from the armed forces who had acquired mechanical knowledge or driving skills, and were joined by a flood of war surplus vehicles sold often at prices barely above their scrap value. Away from the towns, most transport was virtually unregulated. Not all of this activity was bad, as the more enterprising of the newcomers were to establish some of the country’s major provincial bus operators.

Post-war saw one political innovation, the formation of a Ministry of Transport, which removed responsibility for road and railway transport, and canals as well, from the Board of Trade. The first minister was Sir Eric Geddes, a former general manager of the North Eastern Railway, who had become a civil servant during the war years before entering politics.

It is said that neither the new Ministry of Transport, nor its minister, foresaw the extent to which the railways would be affected by road competition, and indeed it was to be eleven years before any measure to control this reached the statute book, but given Geddes’ experience of the railways and his subsequent career moves, one cannot help but question this. The ministry might not have foreseen the future, but Geddes surely must have done, driving through the Railways Act 1921 to the Statute Book.

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