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Show Traffic Is Largest In Road's History Serving the government and the country in the pre-war emergency, the 1941 volume of freight traffic handled by the Union Pacific was the largest in the history of the company, according to the railroad's rail-road's annual report being distributed distri-buted to the stockholders. The 1941 volume of freight traffic traf-fic exceeded that of 1929, the next highest year, by 27.5 percent and the freight revenue of 1929 by 4.4 percent. The substantially smaller percentage per-centage increase in freight revenue reve-nue was due to the fact that the level of rates was 18.1 lower than 1929 because of the effect throughout the intervening years of rate reductions ordered by the Interstate Commerce commission or made voluntarily to retain Or regain traffic from competing transportation agencies and the unrecoverd loss of high-rated short haul traffic to motor carriers. car-riers. An increase of 32.1 percent in freight revenue over 19-40 was the result of an increase of 33.3 percent per-cent in ton-miles of revenue freight carried due to the national defense program and the resultant improvement in business, the report re-port states. The average revenue per ton-mile decreased .9 percent however, due principally to fluctuations fluc-tuations in the classes of commodities com-modities transported and also in (Continued on laat pare) V Traffic Is Largest (Continued trom first page) part to rate reductions to meet competition of other means of transportation. Passenger r e v e n u e-increased 23.4 percent because of increases in . general travel and special government traffic but the average ave-rage revenue per passenger-mile decreased 1.7 percent. Common stock earned $11.19 per share as against $6.96 in 1940 and J6.00 per share was again paid in dividends on the common stock. V ' |