502 History of Inland Transport 



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 rail- 

 ways on any extensive scale ; yet even here, and notwith- 

 standing 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 Com- 

 pany 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 com- 

 pany 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 



