Overloaded Arties Causing Cross-Pennine Hold-ups
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FROM ASHLEY TAYLOR
MANCHESTER, Wednesday.
INCREASINGLY sluggish traffic conditions on the 18-mile stretch of road over the Pennines by the Woodhead route are becoming the subject of widespread complaints by operators and their drivers. The route (which is the main link between the east and west coast via Sheffield, Barnsley and Manchester) has long carried much commercial traffic, but transport managers say that a change in the character of some of the freight has been the cause of trouble, rather than the admitted increase in the number of vehicles.
All the way from Hadfield to the Penister district the road, climbing right over the back-bone of England, is steeply graded, with many sharp bends. As the highway is two-lane, the pace for miles back is regulated by that of the slowest vehicle and the complaint is that in recent months there has been a considerable increase in the number of lorries that have to grind up long stretches at walking pace.
Articulated vehicles are stated to be among the principal offenders, but carriers of steel bars and metal ingots have also exhibited a tendency to overload. One transport manager told me that at times as many as 40 vehicles were to be seen running nose to tail.
He said that the trouble was entirely attributable to overloading, for what was a permissible weight in the dispatching and reception areas often proved nearly impossible for a vehicle crossing the Peak district.
On a recent morning his drivers had encountered two breakdowns, both of which considerably increased the delays by necessitating the introduction of single-lane working. Those who overloaded might save themselves money, he commented, but the resulting delays threw added cost on to operators who loaded reasonably.