4 JUNE 1932, Page 3

Pooling Railway Traffic Both the railways and the public should

benefit by schemes for pooling receipts from competitive traffic, such as the L.M.S. and the L.N.E.R. have put before the Ministry of Transport. The two companies propose, roughly, to pool the receipts from traffic for which they compete, as in the Scottish services or the cross-country services in which other companies are partly concerned. It will be possible, for example, for a passenger to go to Edinburgh by East Coast and return by the West Coast,

or the reverse. Joint undertakings like the Cheshire Lines will be worked in common and more efficiently. Wasteful competition will be eliminated. Clearly, the principle is sound and should be adopted and extended. It is understood, indeed, that the L.M.S. and the G.W.R. are evolving a similar scheme for the traffic to points in

the West like Bristol. * * * *