Deplorable Condition of the Lines Administered by the U.S. S. R, Authorities Prom Ocr: OWN ConnesPoxaEN®
Harbin, Jan. 14, According to the opinion expresseil by some railway experts who have passed Harbin, the railways in the USSR. are rapidly falling into sdeeay and gold roubles 1,500,000,000 a conservative estimate of the sum required to restore them to normal conditions.
Confirmation of this statement can be found in the Soviet press and in the extremely pessimistic report submitted in this respect—by Rudzutak, the Commissar of Way and Communications, at a recent railway conference at Moscow.
At the time when the Russian revolution began, conditions of the Ruseian railway system (over 75,000 versts) were satisfactory.
Out of et out of commis we" th Engines 20, Boga als 0000 Say That meaning that the total number of engines has decreased by 66 engines and the percentage of those out of commission increased by 2 er cent, The number of freight ears is showing an increase of 10,000 ears—but at the same time the percentage of out of commission cars has increased to 26 per cent. this being duc to the fact that the cars eave the workshops after bavins only been patched up, Comparing these figures one sees that the efforts of the Soviet Government had given positive results only case of purchase of new whilst the repair work did not im prove their condition, as the increase dri their number was in no way proportional to thy snerease in the number of out of commission cars,
faystom of repair practised in Soviet This is easily explained by the Russia, Broken and worn-out parts sare not replaced by new, manu actured ones but by parts taken off from other out-of commission cars sand engines, these Intter after that} going to the scrap-help. Rudmutak stated that in result of such a system over 120,000 freight ears) which were awaiting repairs are now la, such a condition that it will be cheaper to build new ones than to repair them and that over 080 engines have boon reduced to serap-fron.
For the 60,000 versts of the pre-wont Russian' railway system the rolling stock in working order con-rists of 9,615 engines and 319,200 ears, The number of engines is net in accordance with the number of ears, us under normal conditions one engine is allotted to 90 ears, and, therefore, for a total of 319,200 cars the required number of ' engines would be 10,640 and not 9,615, showing a shortage of about 1,000 engines, or about 10 per cent, With 60,000 versts of _track 000,000 cars are necessary and therefore with only 819,200 ears in hand
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.