Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/329

Rh lines of rails; besides which, he overlooks the fact that the goods traffic is practically worked during the night, when there are very few passenger trains running. Thirdly, when he relegates the heavy goods and mineral traffic to the canals, he forgets to inquire how far these latter would be competent to provide for it. Canals only exist in certain districts, and they cannot be taken to the doors of the manufacturers, as railways are, by means of branch-lines and sidings throughout the country; and the idea, for example, of the canals accomplishing the gigantic task of bringing into London its daily coal supply of about 32,000 tons, and distributing it throughout the metropolis in the manner expected of the railway companies, is one which, to any one familiar with the subject, appears almost grotesque, to say nothing of the fact that if the railway companies abandoned this class of business, the millions of money which have been spent in providing for it would be practically thrown away.

The reviewer, too, is mistaken in hastily assuming, as he appears to do, that passenger traffic is remunerative to railway companies in a high degree, while goods traffic, especially of the heavier classes, is carried with a small margin of profit. A very few simple calculations drawn from the published accounts and other known statistics of the London and North Western Railway will serve to correct this error.

In the year 1888 that Company received for the conveyance of passenger train traffic, £4,251,329; the working expenses amounted to £2,268,157, leaving £1,983,172, or 46⅔ per cent, as representing the net profit. During the same year the same Company received for the conveyance of goods and mineral traffic, £6,198,583, and the expenses of working it amounted to £3,237,154; the net profit being £2,961,429, or 47¾ per cent.; so that the percentage of profit upon merchandise traffic, taken as a whole, is more than 1 per cent greater than that upon passenger traffic. It may be added that of the total of 35,922,619 tons of merchandise traffic carried upon the London and North Western Railway during the period mentioned, no less than 27,898,314, or about 77⅔ per cent, consisted of coal, coke, and the other low-priced mineral traffic, which the reviewer so much despises. It is impossible accurately to calculate the actual rate of working expenses upon each particular class of traffic, but it seems tolerably clear that, if nearly 78 per cent, of the