ABSTRACT
To a certain extent, it is true, the seven and a half millions of new capital spent since 1867 had increased earning power out of proportion to the addition to mileage to be shown for it. Thus nothing, of course, had been added to mileage by the more than a million which, as we have seen, had been spent on improvements of the main system; yet this outlay had not only increased the capacity of that system, but had been absolutely demanded if traffic was not to be turned away. Further, the figure of 540 miles given above does not include the Great Northern's share in the two new joint undertakings, the Manchester and Liverpool and the Halifax and Ovenden ; yet these lines (which had absorbed about one and a half millions between them since 1870) were already remunerative to some extent. Thirdly, the opening of the Erewash Valley line was really a more important addition to earning power than was denoted by its mileage per se, because it meant the recommencement over the whole system of the most important traffic in Derbyshire coal. These facts have to be taken in qualification of the bare statement than an outlay of seven and a half millions had given fifty-three new miles only.
