ABSTRACT
In January 1901, James Pickfords informed the London & North Western that it had decided to end its long association with the railway company. Railways continued to hold a prominent place in Pickfords' operations for many years to come, but during that pre-1914 decade its attention was being increasingly drawn to a new mode of transport: motorised road haulage. The introduction of motors sharpened even further the keen edge of: competition between the London haulage firms. The number of road goods vehicles in use leaped from 41,000 in 1918 to 128,000 only three years later, a rate of expansion which was maintained for the rest of the 1920s. The bulk transport of meat was one of the first traffics won from the railways by road haulage. The solution of similar technical problems in relation to bulk liquids, chiefly mineral and vegetable oils, together with changes in the pattern of demand, gained another branch of traffic for road haulage.
