RAILWAY WORKING

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 11

RAILWAY WORKING

FINANCIAL RESULTS

FIGURES FOR 44 WEEKS

Comment is made in the Abstract of Statistics for March on the increase of 60.7 per cent, shown in the excess of railway working revenue over operating expenditure for the fourweekly period ended February 4, 1939, compared with the corresponding period of 1938. The figures were £122,224 and £76,066 respectively.

"Although . the railway year does not end until March 31, interest attaches to a comparison of returns during the elapsed forty-four weeks of the current year for which statistics are available with the position during that period of 1937-38," says the Abstract. "The number of passenger journeys during the forty-four weeks was 19,217,377, as compared with 18,678,356 in .a similar period of last railway year, an increase of 2.9 per cent. The volume of goods traffic increased only slightly, the net tonmiles run during the period being 456,692,000 as against 456,411,000 in 1937-38. Railway working revenue during the period amounted to £6,404,441, as compared with £6,244,052 in the same period of last railway year. Operating expenditure has risen from £6,082,719 to £6,473,408, so that the net result for the period is an excess of expenditure amounting to £73,967, as compared with an excess of revenue of £161,333 in the same period of 1937-38. It should be noted that the final eight weeks are among the busiest of the railway year, and, a substantial surplus of revenue for' that period is the usual experience."