A Paper On Railway Economics (Paperback)

A PAPER ON RAILWAY ECONOMICS BY S. C. GHOSE DECEMBER, 1924. THE BOOK COMPANY, COLLEGE SQUARE, CALCUTTA. ACKNOWLEDGMENT. Checked UKSfc- In publishing this pamphlet I beg to tender my sincere thanks to Sir George Godfrey, Kt., B. A., M. I. C. E., M. L. C, Agent of the Bengal Nagpur Railway, for having taken the trouble to go through the original manuscript of this paper and for his valuable suggestions. In his usual broad-minded ness, he refrained from suggesting any omission, alteration or addition, which a Railway Manager might have done in order to give prominence to rail way side of the case or to support the present Railway policy. On the other hand, he gave me every encouragement to lay before the public all aspects of the questions, dealt with in this paper, as plainly and clearly as possible. 53, LANSDOWNE ROAD, CALCUTTA December 1924. S. JC. GHOSE. CONTENTS. PARAS. PAGES. I. Preliminary ... 1 to 3 1 to 2 1 1 . Railways and Common Carriers, Difference bet ween ... ... 4 to 6 2 to 4 HI. Why Railways are called Quasi piublig corporations 7 to 8 4 to 6 IV. What are various fact6rs that govern Rates and Fares ... ... 9 to 26 7 to 24 V. Indian Railways in parti cular ... ... 27 to 52 25 to 51 VI. Position of State Rail ways ... ... 53 to 56 51 to 56 VII. Difference between managements of State lines and Company lines 57 to 58 56 to 59 HI. Necessity for separate independent manage ment of each Railway system ... ... 59 59 to 60 IX. Competition, combina tion, amalgamations and grouping of Railways ... 60 60 to 64 X. Main features of differ ence between Company lines of U. S. A. and Great Britain and Com pany managed lines of India ... ... 61 to 63 64 to 68 11 PARAS. PAGES. XLIndianization of higher railway services and training facilities for In dian Railway officers for traffic and transportation branches ... ... 64 to 66 68 to 71 XI I . Manufacture of Railway materials and stores for Indian State owned rail ways and training facili ties in India for Loco motive Enginers ... 67 to 69 7 1 to 74 XIII. Government control of Railways ... ... 70 to 77 75 to 80 XIV. Railway Operation ... 78 to 83 80 to 88 XV. Uniformity of manage ment and standards and Public Safety ... 84 88 to 90 XVI . Pooling of Wagons ... 85 90 to 92 XVII . Railway Finance ... 86 to 89 93 to 1 00 XVIII. Indian Railway Re organisation ... 90 to 95 100 to 106 A PAPER ON RAILWAY ECONOMICS. PRELIMINARY. 1 . In writing this paper on Railway Economics I have endeavoured to place all sides of the case viz. the public, the government and the railway points of view as clearly as possible before the public. What ever might have been or might be my personal opinion I have tried to avoid it to the best of my power, and my one aim has been to make a clear statement of facts and to state each side of the case fully and fairly, so as to leave it entirely to the readers to draw their own conclusions. It is only fair that they should not be influenced by any personal opinion, and ought to be able to form their own conclusions, for this is the best and the fairest way of arriving at a healthy public opinion. 2. In dealing with Railway problems one is first required to consider the question as to what are the functions of railways. This is easily answered for almost everybody knows that railways are carriers of goods and passengers, but the real issue that requires to be settled is what position the railwaysoccupy in the eyes of the public in connection with 2 A PAPER ON RAILWAY ECONOMICS the performance of the service they are required to render to the public. 3. There are other methods of transporting persons and their property besides the rail roads, and the point is whether or not railways can be brought under the same category as the other carriers. It is therefore, necessary, to analyse and ascertain what are the main features of difference between rail roads and common carriers...