Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/293

Rh So that, under the old state of things, the first class traffic paid best, but the second class paid better than the third; while, under present conditions, the third class is the most remunerative traffic, the second class comes next, and the profit en first class appears to be very small indeed.

During the period of eighteen years which has elapsed between the years 1870 and 1888, although the mileage of railways owned and worked by the London and North Western Company has only increased to the extent of forty-five per cent., the passenger train mileage has increased by sixty-one per cent, and the gross amount of fuel consumed per annum by passenger engines has been augmented by no less than 142 per cent, or in more than double the ratio of the increase of train mileage, showing the unmistakeable effect of the increased speed, and the heavier weights to which motive power has to be applied. The total number of passengers carried has increased, it is true, by eighty-seven percent, but the earnings have only been improved to half that extent, or by forty-four per cent, while the number of passengers conveyed for the expenditure of one ton of fuel has fallen by 22 per cent.—that is to say, that the amount of fuel, which in 1870 was sufficient to convey 100 passengers, in 1888 only sufficed to convey about seventy-eight, owing to the greater amount of dead weight to be hauled, and the higher speed to be maintained.

Mr. Price Williams, Mem. Inst. Civil Engineers, who has achieved a considerable reputation as an indefatigable statistician, and an authority on most questions relating to railways, submitted to the writer, about four years ago, some very interesting calculations which he