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Show & R. G. Has Successful Year TO MAKE IMPROVEMENTS DENVER, Colo., December 28 The Denver & Rio Grande Western, the home road of the great, inter-mountain inter-mountain area of Colorado and Utah, occupies an enviable position among western lines at the close of 1936. Every gauge by which railroad rail-road conditions are measured reads favorably for the Rio Grande. Gross revenues will exceed $25,000,000 for the first time since 1930. A traffic increase of more than 20 per cent measured by carloadings of revenue freight and volume of passenger business places the Rio Grande at the forefront of western lines. With improved business, employment employ-ment has steadily increased. The Rio Grande at the close of 1936 carries 9000 names on its employes roster, with a payrool of $13,000,000, highest since 1930. Carloadings over the system indicate indi-cate a healthy business condition throughout Colorado and Utah. Products of field, farm and orchard, were harvested as bumper crops. Livestock fattened on green summer range, reached market in prime condition. Metal mines, reacting to favorable conditions, came back as a ranking industry, and coal tonnage ton-nage showed a substantial increase. Improvement in retail trade is reflected re-flected by gains made in merchandise merchan-dise freight movements. The business busi-ness barometer is rising as the New Year approaches. Coincident with gains in traffic, the Rio Grande is launching an improvement program calling for expenditure ex-penditure of $9,300,000 in addition to another $9,000,000 which will be required for normal maintenance of way and maintenance of equipment. This total of $18,300,000 does not take into account expenditures for general, traffic and transportation expense, which must be incurred regardless re-gardless of improvements, and which are in a measure dependent on the volume of traffic handled. With preliminary estimates indicating continued traffic increases, it is anticipated an-ticipated that Rio Grande expenditures expendi-tures in 1937 will exceed $28,000,000, largest amount spent since 1928. Federal Judge J. Foster Symes, under whose jurisdiction the Rio Grandef is operating pending reorganization, re-organization, approved the improvement improve-ment budget, submitted by Wilson McCarthy and Henry Swan, trustees. "The sole aim of Mr. Swan and myself is to improve the Rio Grande to the greatest extent consistent with its earning power, and to provide pro-vide the intermountain West with a railroad matching in every particular particu-lar with the nation's leading carriers" car-riers" declared Judge McCarthy, chief operating officer of the Rio Grande. "It is our hope that the home railroad will not only continue its 65-yeax-old role as transportation servant to its own territory, but that it will broaden its influence and prominence as a transcontinental line of ever-increasing importance. For line changes, reduction of grade " and curvature, ballasting roadway, and laying of 82 miles of new 112 pound rail, $6,350,000 will be spent. Improvements will be made on every division of the Rio Grande lines, which include 2,550 miles of right-of-way in Colorado, Utah and New Mexico. Another $2,950,000 will be spent for ten new freight locomotives, five new passenger locomotives and 100 gondola cars for hauling coal. Approval of the improvement budget bud-get means release of a welcome flood of money throughout Colorado and Utah. Increased employment will bring still larger, payrolls for the region's largest employer, and heavier purchases by the region's j best buyer. |
