Transport Act 1968

1 Establishment and general duty of Freight Corporation

(1) There shall be constituted in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 1 to this Act a public authority to be called the National Freight Corporation (hereafter in this Act referred to as " the Freight Corporation "), and it shall be the duty of the Corporation—

(a) so to exercise their powers under or by virtue of this Act as, in conjunction with the Railways Board—

(i) to provide, or secure or promote the provision of, properly integrated services for the carriage of goods within Great Britain by road and rail; and

(ii) to secure that, in the provision of those services, goods are carried by rail whenever such carriage is efficient and economic,

and in discharging their duty under sub-paragraph (ii) of this paragraph, to have due regard to any indication of the needs of the person for whom the goods in question are to be carried and to the nature of the goods;

(b) in connection with those services, to provide such other services and facilities as appear to the Corporation to be expedient; and

(c) to have due regard, as respects all those transport and other services and facilities, to efficiency, economy and safety of operation.

(2) The railway services which it is the duty of the Railways Board under section 3(1) of the Act of 1962 to provide shall cease to include any such services as are mentioned in subsection (1)(a) of this section which the Freight Corporation have power to provide; but the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall not affect the powers of the Board to provide such services and—

(a) it shall be the duty of the Corporation and the Board to co-operate with one another in the exercise and performance of their respective functions so as to secure the proper discharge of the Corporation's duty under the said subsection (1)(a); and

(b) for the purposes of such co-operation, the Corporation and the Board shall have power to enter into such arrangements with one another with respect to the exercise and performance of their respective functions on such terms as may appear to them to be expedient;

and where, for the purposes of the implementation of any agreement between the Corporation or a subsidiary of theirs and any other person for the conveyance of goods wholly or partly by rail, anything is done or falls to be done by the Railways Board or a subsidiary of that Board, the Board or that subsidiary of the Board shall be deemed to be a party to the agreement and shall have the like rights and be subject to the like liabilities under the agreement as if the agreement had been made by the Corporation or that subsidiary of the Corporation and the Board or that subsidiary of the Board acting jointly.

(3) Nothing in subsection (1) or in paragraph (a) of subsection (2) of this section shall be construed as imposing, either directly or indirectly, any form of duty or liability enforceable by proceedings before any court to which the Freight Corporation or, as the case may be, the Railways Board would not otherwise be subject.