Tourism Needs Transport

Transport's Social Account

We know that each form of transport has its profit and loss account and recently we have begun to consider its environmental cost (almost always in the red). What about the social cost/benefit?

For example, flying might have social costs as well as social benefits. If there is always an environmental cost, is it - at least - partly counteracted by the social benefits? But are these benefits outweighed by disbenefits, such as the annoyance caused to people living under the flight path?

The potential benefits are wide ranging - especially if personal gains such as to someone's health are counted, since they also have social implications. There is the 'getting-to-know-you' factor of the traveller who discovers other places and peoples. Much travel is to renew old family and friends' relationships. To the host community travellers can bring new ideas, but also help support local cultural activity and a sense of pride that comes from being visited and admired. On the other hand cultures can be diluted or debased by the demands of the tourist.

It's obviously complicated, trying to calculate so many variables which have often got no numerical values, but it's extremely difficult coming up with a comprehensive understanding of environmental gains and losses. In addition, people travel either to make money or to get social benefit. At what point does social gain outweigh environmental loss?
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Camping Coaches

At a station on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway stands a carriage. It isn't waiting for a steam locomotive to take it away down the track. This coach is waiting for visitors to move in, cook food, admire scenery, go off to bed. It's a camping coach and definitely stays put.

Introduced in 1933 in Britain as a way of getting people to travel by train to a station and base their holiday there, they were an immediate success. This was partly due to their low cost of £3.00 per week and partly to the fast-growing fashion of camping - not necessarily in the sense of individual tents, but of organised camping grounds with tents provided, or as with these coaches, a more solid structure. Three years later Billy Butlin was to open his first chalet-land holiday camp at Skegness, a development of the tented camps which had been run for around 40 years.

Within two years there were 200 camping coaches at 160 locations, run by each of the 'big four' railway companies. Old rolling stock was pressed into service, positioned on suitable sidings and equipped with everything that was needed.

During the 1950s and 60s competition and changing fashions removed most of the coaches from holiday use, but a few still exist, some of which have been set up quite recently as unusual and well-appointed accommodation. This one was (I think!) at Levisham station; another is at Goathland, both on the NYMR. Coaches like these can earn useful money for preservation societies; railways always need good sleepers.
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Getting The Low-Down - Low Down!

What thousands of enthusiasts have said millions of times is true: travelling is best done at ground level. OK, time and distance make flying inevitable for much of the time, but having got close to your destination, get down to the real thing - down on the ground. And take it s-l-o-w-l-y. See what is to be seen. Make sense of what you are seeing.

You may prefer being cocooned in your car, but social travelling is fun and far more interesting. If your fellow travellers are from the same place as you, share your thoughts about what you find. If they're locals who just hopped on board, say hello and share their views on the neighbourhood. It adds another dimension to the picture you're getting by just your own efforts. See another side of the situation. Understanding a place is satisfying.

Jet aircraft are the worst ways of seeing the world - unless the sky is clear and the earth below is not too far down. It might not be on offer - or affordable - but a high-wing prop plane skimming a couple of thousand feet up gives a great view of places. So does a helicopter if you can stand the noise. Trains are better (that's the California Zephyr crossing Nevada in the photo). Buses are good except for being confined to a small space. Get on a bike if it suits you. Or best of all walk!

We had a campaign for real ale and there's another for slow food. How about a campaign for real travel? - slower, down to earth and sympathetic!
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Transport Showcase

The kind of tourism that uses no form of transport at all is negligible. Only by walking the whole time can a traveller avoid using transport - and that includes admiring passing vehicles, boats and planes.

Sometimes transport forms the attraction. The excitement of flying, the nostalgia of steam locomotives or the spectacular beauty of tall ships all contribute to the delights of certain kinds of travelling. This example is in the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. It's an example of a museum artifact as precious art, mounted above a mirror to emphasise its qualities and brightly lit to highlight its form.

The wood-burning loco that made its smokey way across the American landscape would never had appeared this well-painted and clean. The museum curators want to present it as a high engineering achievement, handsome, efficient and powerful. The engineer who drove it might have thought otherwise as he worked in the dirty environment of the footplate. The American natives who saw it pass by their land might have feared for the future and resented what it brought. Yet the locomotive driver could also have been proud of his charge and kept it as clean as he was able; the natives may have welcomed the new opportunities it brought. Other museum exhibits and other museums show the dirt and the danger. This one shows the beauty.
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