THE RAILWAYS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21126, 27 August 1938, Page 4

THE RAILWAYS

Record Gross Revenue More Passengers Carried Annual Statement of Operations By feieerqnh Association WELLINGTON, August 26. ■ The Minister of Railways, the Hon. ; D. G. Sullivan, to-day laid on the table of the House of Representatives the r.nnual Railways Statement dei ling with the operations of the Department for the year ended March 31, 1938. He said: “The financial year which ended on March 31, 1938, the second since I assumed the portfolio of Railways, has been one of marked progress in every feature of railway activity, with notable buoyancy in many of the classes of i traffic carried by the Department and ' some important developments that have been particularly helpful to the i people of the Dominion from both the j business and recreational aspects. “More business has been done by the | railways during the past twelve months • than in any previous year in the history i of the Dominion. This fact is attested I not only by the record gross revenue earned, but also by the record total of 561,000 000 goods net ton-miles. There was an increase over the previous year of 1,205,784 passenger journeys by tram, and 890.023 additional passengers were conveyed by railway road services as compared with the year ended March 31, 1937. “The internal activities of the Department have been equally impressive. Never previously have the railway workshops been so fully' engaged, their total staff now standing at approximately 6000, and in no other year have so many major improvements been introduced into the working railways. Kail-Cars “The year has proved the efficiency and popularity of rail cars designed and built by the Department for certain classes of traffic in suitable localities. | Following the experimental stage of , Wairarapa and Midland types of rail | cars, the first of the standard rail cars evolved to meet the general requirements of the Department, designed by | our own engineers and built by our j own craftsmen, has been completed at | the Hutt Valley Railway Workshops. ' Larger and more powerful than any- , thing of the kind previously seen in , New Zealand, the new ‘Aotea’ type of vehicle, of which a further 15 are under construction or on order, is striking in appearance, fast and comfortable to travel by, and is a power unit of great adaptability which promises to have an extremely beneficial effect on rail travel in New Zealand, particularly in those districts where it can be util used to replace mixed trains or be used as complementary to existing express services. “The electric multiple-unit coaches, introduced in July upon the Welling-ton-Johnsonville line, have demonstrated what can be done by appropriate action in winning traffic for the railways by giving the highest standard of service to the public upon a line which but a few years ago was officially assessed as having no more than a trifling salvage value.” The Wellington new station exceeded the most sanguine expectations of the advocates of a modern transport headquarters at Wellington for the convenience of travellers to and from the capital city. The new station supplies an outstanding example of the ready response the public make to the present-day progressive developments of railways, and, as members were aware, it had become virtually a new civic centre. So mucn had expectations been exceeded that, despite a generous margin in the space provided for future expansion, the station was already working to a maximum capacity in certain branches, and further extensior will be required to cope with the anticipated traffic of the Centennial year and the normal development which may reasonably be expected to follow later. The first seven powerful electric locomotives for the Wellington-Paeka-kariki section of the North Island main lines had already been tested and had met all requirements, and when the others of the same type now under construction at the Hutt Valley Railway Workshops were completed and all trains to and from the Main Trunk line were electrically operated between Wellington and Packakariki, a further stage in the modernisation of the railways would have been achieved. The steai£ locomotive power had been improved by building six newtype heavy engines of the G class for the South Island, and a number of additional K engines were under construction. Passenger and rolling-stock had been improved, and more and better waggons had been provided for the conveyance of goods. Bridges and viaducts had been strengthened, heavier tracks laid, grades and curves improved, duplications extended, and innumerable other improvements on a considerable scale had been carried out during the year. The leeway of the past years was being steadily made up, and the cost of arrears of maintenance had been borne out of the current year’s eai nings. Financial Aspect The revenue for the year ended March 31, 1938, was £8,634.186, the highest amount yet earned by the Department in any financial year, representing an increase of £843,535, or 10.83 per cent, over the gross earnings of the previous year and £1,629,870, or 23.26 per cent, more than the earnings for the year ended March 31, 1936. This increase of 23.26 per cent in the gross revenue of the railways during the two years of the present administration was a remarkable proof of the earning-capacity of the railways when trading conditions of the country were generally favourable for their operation, particularly as there had been no increases in the rates for passengers or goods during this two-year period. Bearing this in mind, it may be reasonably claimed that in the past two years the New Zealand Railways had come well out of the doldrums into the fair trade-wind of present-day conditions, and that the Government’s policy had

been the power which had helped them to achieve these results. The actual financial results of the year’s work compare with the Budget objectives as follow: Budget Estimate Actual. £ £ Revenue .. 8.253.500 8.634,186 Expenditure .. 7,651,198 8.001,389 Net Revenue .. 602,302 632.797 The gross earnings for the year were the true earnings of the Department, no device having been adopted to swell the gross revenue. This should be remembered when comparison was made with. say. the financial years ended March 31, 1926, 1927, 1928, and 1929, when the railways were provided with subsidies from the Consolidated Fund amounting to £359,540 in 1926, £445,221 in 1927. £489,568 in 1928. and £490.735 in 1929, which amounts were included in the gross revenue of the respective years, and the net revenue return increased correspondingly. The expenditure for the year totalled £8,001.389. an increase of £1,114.596 upon the previous year’s figures. The main items of this increase were additional expenditure upon maintenance, rolling-stock, and locomotive and traffic transportation, which together accounted for £905.163 of this amount. Wages and Conditions Wages for the year amounted to £4.902,226, or 61.27 per cent of the total expenditure. Wages paid the previous year amounted to £4.168,041, so that the increase for the year under review amounted to £734,185, made up as shown hereunder:— £ Restoration to 1931 level .. 74,516 Forty-hour week (in operation for only portion of previous year) 223,697 Cast of removing anomalies as from September 1. 1937. created by the introduction of the forty-hour week one year earlier 44,582 New wage schedules and regrading 99.401 Total increase in wages < Working Expense Account) due to concessions to staff 442,196 Increased wages cost of handling additional traffic .. .. 291. 98 b Total increase in wages . £734.185 As the net revenue was £271.061 less than in the previous year, it would be seen that the improved wage conditions provided for the staff during the year under review, cost £442,196, more than accounted for the decrease in net revenue. "It cannot be stated too clearly that the Government’s policy, based on the primary consideration tha£ the general standard of living in New Zealand .should be such as the country’s great productive capacity justifies, is applied to the railways as it is to other industries and to other Government Departments, irrespective of whether th are revenue producing or otherwise. The policy called for action to improve the purchasing-power of the people, including the forty-hour week to assist in eliminating the national .scourge of unemployment. In the railways it required also—(1) a complete restoration of wages following the ‘cuts’ authorised by the legislation of 1931 and 1932; (2) the removal of certain anomalies in the wages scale; (3) the regrading of positions, a right to which the staff were entitled, but the operation of which had been postponed by tl e previous Administration; and (4) a revision of the standard wages paid'to the lower-paid men in the Service, witn the object of ensuring that they received reasonable remuneration as compared with employees in other Government Departments and those working under awards of the Arbitration Court.”