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/L.P.(41)1.
10H JANUARY, 1941./
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ENCLOSURE.
153
lo
WAR CABINET
LORD PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE.
NEW RAILWAY WORKS.
Memorandum by the Minist of Transport.
I have had under review with the Railway Executive Committee the adequacy of the existing railways to serve the needs of the nation during the probable future course of the war. Since the war began railway works of a total cost estimated at about 211⁄2 millions designed to increase the capacity of lines or to provide alternative routes have been brought into use or are in course of completion, but recent experience, including in particular the effects of shipping diversion, black-out conditions and air raid damage indicate that yet greater line capacity is required in certain directions if the railways are to be enabled to perform all the services likely to be demanded of them,
2.
In view of the time taken to carry out extensive railway works it has seemed well to look ahead and the review of possible requirements has been projected to the winter of 1942.. For this purpose it is necessary to postulate the future course of the war at least to that date and the Railway Executive Committee have suggested the following assumptions on which to estimate the futuro calls upon the railwa. 3-
how
(a) an increase of not less than 25% in railway freight
Up to the traffic over the present level, beginning of the intensive air attack early in September railway freight traffic showed large increases over the corresponding periods of 1939. After the outbreak of war in September 1939 there was a large increase in traffic and the period September-December 1940 when compared with the corresponding months of 1939 shows an increase of only about 3%;
(b) military traffic, whether freight or passenger, will
not fall below present level.
This includes
export to oversea theatres of war, maintenance of Armed Forces at home without reduction and the possibility of an American expeditionary force using this country as its base;
(c) civilian travel, taking into account the effects
of dispersal of war production will not grow less;
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