Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1319

 RAILWAYS

963

is ill progi'css. It will have a length of 619 miles, and its cost is estimated at 35,000,000 roubles. The line Vologda- Arklangelsk was opened in 1897. A sum of 129,112,196 roubles has been subscribed for new railways in the budget estimate of 1897, out of which 64,414,762 for the Siberian l"ailway and works connected with it, and 10,656,047 for narrow gauge feeding branches.

Two other important lines were begun in 1895, one in Caucasia, to con- nect Tiflis with Kars (188 miles), and another in Central Asia. This last will connect the Saraarcand terminus of the Transcaspian railway with Andijan in Ferganah, and have a branch to Tashkend, capital of Kussian Turkestan. Length, 342 miles ; estimated cost, 27,000,000 roubles. In Caucasia, a branch line from the main Vladikavkaz line to Petrovsk on the Caspian has been completed in 1896, and the Borjom tunnel is in-construc- tion ; in European Russia, the lines Kursk to Voronezh ; I\Ioscow to Kazan ; Tamboff to Kamyshin ; and St. Petersburg to Sestroryetsk are in construction.

The number of passengers on Russian railways having been small (from one- third to one-tenth of that on the railways of AVestern Europe), a zone-tariff" for passengers was introduced in 1894, whereby the cost of travelling was so much reduced that the fare for a journey of 3,000 versts (1,989 miles) is now 16 roubks 80 copecks, instead of 43 roubles 13 copecks as formerly. Since this new tariff" has been introduced, the passengers' traffic has much in- creased (by 29 per cent, in three years), attaining 53,354,186 persons in 1897, and the revenue from passengers' traffic has grown by 18 per cent. (66,767,500 roubles in 1897).

The rolling stock on January 1, 1896, was : 8,123 steam engines (7,571 on January 1, 1895), 9,133 passengers' carriages, 179,690 goods carriages, and 256 post carriages. Moreover, on the Transcaspian railway, 110 engines and 1,080 carriages. About 400 engines and 15,000 carriages can be built every year by Russian works. The number of men employed on the Russian railways was 343,996 in 1895, receiving an aggregate of 109,795,743 roubles of wages.

The financial conditions of the Russian railways and their relations to the State are best seen from the yearly reports of the State Control for 1896 {Official Messenger, December 1897). The revenue and expenditure of the State Treasury in connection with both the State railways and the private rail- ways appeared for the five years 1892-96 as follows (in paper roubles) : —

Year

Revenue from

railway, State

and private

Expenditure for the same

Balance

Balance after deducting expendi- ture for improvement

1892 1893 1894 1895 1896

Roubles 111,102,293 119,667,663 155,455,493 217,701,690 312,374,372

Roubles 142,905,128 153,905,031 183,115,228 242,811,956 278,283,293

Roubles -31,802,835 -34,237,368 -27,659,735 -25,110,266 -1-34,091,079

Roubles -20,000,150 -15,095,193 -16,111,096 -11,887,014 -f 25,283, 461

The considerable surplus of 1896 is due to the transfer of 35,300,000 roubles from special accounts to the Treasury.

On January 1, 1897, the net of raihvays belonging to the State attained 17,009 E. miles, out of which 16,493 miles {%Q per cent, of all the railway net of the Empire) were under State management, and 516 miles were rented by the State to private companies.

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