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 General merchandise, also covers a very wide range of commodities, as its name implies, and the bulk of it is made up of manufactured products of many kinds.

Consignment sizes in this class of traffic vary enormously and, for practical reasons, the broad class is sub-divided into two groups according to whether consignments are large enough to make a wagon-load or not.

As already mentioned, only one of the three main classes of freight is profitable and the 1961 results were:—

Class of traffic Coal Mineral General merchandise: . Wagon-load Sundries Margin of Tons Receipts receipts over direct cost Estimated margin over total cost M. 145-7 £m. 108.3 £m. Em. 24.8 2.8 54-3 44.5 7.6 3.7 34.41.38.2 3-838-2 64-81 38.0102.8 -31-81 53-81 -45-3 -75.1 - -13-5 -21.35

The trends in volume and receipts for these classes of traffic over recent years are shown by Figures Nos. 1, 2 and 3.