The State Corporation Commission has granted the Seaboard Air Line Railroad permission to annul its local trains running between Charlotte and Rutherfordton on January 1st. The basis of this grant is the reduced revenue of the trains, due it was shown, to increased bus competition. Since 1920 the passengers hauled by these two trains had decreased 61 per cent, according to figures submitted to the Corporation Commission.
These two are not the only trains that are going to be discontinued if some steps are not taken to protect the railroads from a competition they cannot meet. The Free Press firmly believes in competition, but it is convinced that the state must exact a license tax and prescribe regulations for bus traffic which will put them somewhere on a parity with the railroad and give the latter a more even chance. It is probably true that the short haul passenger traffic for the railroads has passed its high market, and it will hardly ever reach the peak again. Unquestionably the convenience of the bus schedules will attract patrons and present a competition which the railroads cannot be expected to meet fully. At the same time protection must be given the railroads if they are not to be put out of business. As it is now, anybody who can raise the first payment on an automobile can start a bus line and divert traffic without paying into the state treasury commensurately at all with the privilege of using the highways.
The question of license, tax and regulation will be one of the live ones at the forthcoming session of the General Assembly.
From The Kinston Free Press as reprinted on page 6 of The Goldsboro News, Saturday morning, December 20, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn93064755/1924-12-20/ed-1/seq-6/#words=DECEMBER+20%2C+1924
No comments:
Post a Comment