ParkRoyal2100:
Wheel Nut:
fodenway:
Let’s get this right.Yes we know the Brit government hates road transport because it likes rail transport and has historically sabotaged the UK haulage industry as part of that agenda.So how is more of the same,in the form of giving the work to the East Euro third country hauliers instead,good for us and going to fix that.As opposed to applying a rule that at least 50% of all loads originating from or destined for the UK by road have to make the journey on Brit registered trucks.IE a quota permit system that actually works in the interests of this country’s hauliers not foreign ones.Wasn’t it the Tory Transport Minister Ernest Marples who appointed Dr. Richard Beeching (at a much higher salary than the PM) to close down a significant proportion of Britain’s railways in favour of a motorway building scheme involving Marples Ridgway, a company he’d founded and which was sold very cheaply to his own wife to avoid a ‘conflict of interest’ with his Parliamentary job? He had abolished the British transport Commission in preparation for the 1962 Transport Act, and introduced legislation to make rail closures easier. Not the actions of a “road transport hater”, surely?
Did you realise that it was the gracious lady Barbara Castle who closed the railways, introduced the breathalyser and motorway speed limit under a Labour Government with Harold Wilson in power?
With due respect to yourself and all who’ve given their ten penn’orth beforehand (and the admission that, as an ex-pat Pom, my opinion is really neither here nor there), it strikes me that both sides have valid points, and that both sides can cite past political decisions made by the ‘for’ or ‘agin’ or Labour or the Tories in defence of their position.
What strikes me from my position 12,000 miles away is that neither the ‘Remain’ nor the ‘Leave’ camp have the whole answer to Britain’s woes, much less Labour or the Tories as political factions - don’t ask me what the answer is cos I dunno, save to observe that the rate of immigration into Britain (legal or otherwise) must be addressed. But enough bollydicks - transport is what this forum is about and if there’s anything I’ve learned over the years, it’s that both road and rail freight transport have been chronically underfunded for decades. There is no use pitting one against the other - that game has been going on for decades, and look what that’s produced: clogged roads, collapsing rail infrastructure, delays and increasing frustration. The bigger issue (I think) is that freight transport has always been a necessity that no-one - either department or Minister - in the public sector could ever really handle: if they were popular they lacked the nouse to come up with a workable solution; if they knew what they were doing, it wasn’t politically popular. To those who think a penny invested in rail is a pound wasted on roads, all I can say is come to Straya and see what that outlook does for your roads, your deadlines and your “liveability”.
So are you saying that you’d like to see road trains banned there and only uk type dimensions and gross weights allowed and the pump price of diesel increased to around 2.5-3 dollars a litre to incentivise growth in rail transport ?. 
Truck net by train drivers for train drivers or is it turkeys voting for Christmas.
