RAILWAYS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15899, 10 April 1912, Page 8

RAILWAYS.

We see that it still pleases some of our Wellington and Auckland contemporaries when drawing comparisons between the earnings of the North Island and South Island railways to show the earnings per mile of line instead of the ratio the 'earnings bear to the cost of construction. The reason for this is obvious enough. The northern lines have cost about £11,580 per mile while the southern lines have cost only £9870 per mile, so that the method of comparison adopted by our contemporaries shows the superior earning power of the former to be considerably larger than it really is- The length of the lines constructed in the South is some 38 per cent greater than the length of the lines constructed in tho North, but the cost of .the southern lines is only 19 per cent greater than tho cost of the northern lines. After making allowance for these facts, however, there can be no doubt that the North Island railways, judged by the revenue returns are doing substantially better than are the South . Island railways. The net returns for the former during the first forty-eight weeks of the current financial year were £632,183, while the net returns from the latter were £502,188. The returns for the corresponding period of last year were £578,563 and £521,601 respectively, so that while the northern lin© s E } l£nv an increase of £53,620 the southern lines show a decrease of £19,413. The figures are not so satisfactory as they should

be in either case, but they do not in themselves justify the conclusion of one of our contemporaries that the management of tho lines is “hopelessly bad.” What they do suggest is that the multiplication of branch lines, however good it may be for tho country at large, is not necessarily good for the revenue. We still believe that the railway between Lyttelton and Bluff is one of the most profitable lines in the country, but it is burdened by so many branch lines, which cannot be distinguished in the accounts, that its roturns do not give an adequate idea of what it is really doing. When the North Island gets the 450 miles of branch railways for which its newspapers are clamouring it probably will find that mere length of line is a very questionable advantage from the financial point of view.