NEW RAILWAY RECORDS

Southland Times, Issue 24419, 26 April 1941, Page 8

NEW RAILWAY RECORDS

GROSS REVENUE OVER £11,000,000

NET EARNINGS ARE HIGHEST YET

(P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, April 25. The railway returns for the financial year ended March 31 have broken some long-standing records. In a statement issued today the Minister of Railways, the Hon. R. Semple, revealed that the gross revenue had reached the £ll,000,000 mark for the first time in the history of the railways and that the net revenue stood at approximately £1,694,724, more than £500,000 in excess of the preceding year’s balance and £61,000 more than the record net earnings produced in the year 1926. “In reviewing at the end of February last the department’s operations for ten months, I expressed the opinion that the net earnings at March 31 would eclipse the record amount earned in the 1925-26 year by a considerable amount,” said Mr Semple. “My forecast has proved correct, for a preliminary statement of the accounts for the whole of the 1940-41 financial year reveals that the closing balance (subject to minor readjustments) exceeded by £61,931 the balance recorded at March 31, 1926. The year just closed has therefore set new records for net revenue, gross revenue and expenditure. Another record will be found in the goods and livestock tonnage carried during the year. Complete figures are not yet available, but it is evident that this traffic will have totalled well over 8,000,000 tons compared with the record in 1930 of 7,788.973 tons and the 1940 years’ total of 7,673,950 tons. “For the first time in the history of the railways,” continued the Minister, “the gross revenue has reached the £11,000.000 mark, the figure being £11,160.299. This total is £961,229 above the gross income of the 1939-40, an increase of 9.42 per cent. Expenditure for the year ended March 31, 1941, was £9,465,575, a sum which exceeded I the total disbursements of the preceding year by £455.536 (5.06 per cent.). The net earnings for the past year, therefore, amounted to about £1,694,724 — £505,693 more than the net earnings of 1939-40. The ratio of expenditure to gross revenue declined from 88.34 per cent, in 1939-40 to 84.81 per cent, in the past year, a very pleasing improvement of 31 per cent.”