Railway Revenue.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 254, 1 May 1896, Page 2

Railway Revenue.

The railway returns for the year ended 31st March last have completed, and show an extremely satisfactory state of affairs. The revenue totals £1,183,040, and the expenditure .£751,367, the net profit therefore being 673. The cost of the 2014 miles of opened lines is given at £15,352,613, and the profit therefore amounts to £2 13s 9d per cent. Ihis is in round numbers £16,600 better than the estimate, and £13,000 better than last year. On the North Island section, where there are 775 miles open for traffic, the revenue for the year amounted to £438,---840, and the expenditure to £283,550. On the Wellington section the number of miles open for traffic is 94, the revenue was £85,773, and the expenditure £51,389. The Napier-Taranaki section has 332 miles open for traffic, the revenue was £207,467, and the expenditure 133,889. On the Middle Island section there are 1239 miles open for traffic, and the revenue amounted to £744,199, against an expenditure of £467,817. In the corresponding period of last year, when there were 760 miles open for traffic iv the North Island, the revenue was £424,---111, and the expenditure was £275,591. In the Middle Island section for the same period there were 1233 miles open for traffic, the revenue was £726,739, and the expenditure totalled £456,569. The traffic returns show that a total of 4,162,426 passengers were carried on all sections during the year, as against 3,905,578 in 1895, and 36,233 season tickets were issued, an increase of 7610 over the numbers for the previous twelve months. The parcels, horses, carriages and dogs carried totalled 489.893, against 480,433 in 1895, and the number of drays, I &c, cattle, calves, stieep and pigs carried was 1,933.402, and increase of 328,---594 over the figures for 1895. Of chaff , lime, &c, 53,260 tons were carried; wool, 99,363 tons ; firewood, 78,804 tons; timber, 213,132 tons ; grain, 374,699 tons ; merchandise, 389,880 tons ; minerals, 878,658 tons ; being a total of 2,087,798 tons. The total of these figures for the previous year was 2,048.391 tons, the increase thus being 39.407 tons.