Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/290

252 So that while the total receipts from all three classes shew an increase of only 28 percent., the work done, measured by passenger mileage, has increased by just twice that amount, viz, by 56 per cent.

If the reader will now refer to the figures given at page 125, he will find that the number of seats provided in the company's carriage stock at the present time is:—

In 1871 the numbers were:—

Thus the accommodation has in the aggregate been increased by 76 per cent., while, the gross receipts, as stated above, have only been augmented by 28 percent., which shows—assuming that the carriage stock provided in 1871 was proportionate to the requirements of the traffic—that under present conditions the trains are not so well and fully occupied as under the old state of things, and that unprofitable mileage of carriage stock is being run.

It has always been a somewhat vexed question amongst railway statisticians as to what is the most reliable method of arriving at an estimate of the relative net profits derived from the various classes of passenger traffic; that is to say, that, having ascertained the total