BRITISH RAILWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 144, 15 December 1933, Page 9

BRITISH RAILWAYS

INCREASING CONFIDENCE

IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMME

(British Official Wirelesi.) RUGBY, December 13. It is announced that proposals at a cost of £840,000 for replacements and improvements for 1934 by the London t Midland, and Scottish Eailway Company follow the constantly-ixnproving traffic returns of British railways in. recent months and are ■ an indication of increasing confidence. The company proposes to order 159 locomotive boilers, 675 carriages, 5365 wagons, and 8000 tons of steel rails to renew 500 miles of permanent way; This follows recent orders for 2000 freight wagons, suitably designed for new high-speed service, and 1500 new locomotives. Since its formation in 1923 * the company will have spent £100,000,000, or; the equivalent of a quarter of its issue of capital, on re-equipmenfc and improvements. ■ These include 2500 locomotives, 129,500 wagons, and 1,000,000 tons of rails. As part of the increased' efficiency programme the types of locomotives in the company's service have been reduced from 393 to 204, while the number of superheated locomotives has increased by 2000, or more than doubled. The London ■ and North Eastern Railway have placed orders for 3480, tons of cast-iron permanent way chairs,