34. Miscellaneous operating revenue shows an increase of $34,006.89 over last year and if pig traffic had been maintained at the first half year's level this figure would have been still more favourable.
35. There were two sales of old wagons, during the year. The total amount realized was $29,251 for the twelve wagons sold. A 2 ton Ford V8 lorry, no longer an economical proposition to
was also sold during the year and realized $1,339.
run,
36. Capital expenditure during the year amounted to $4,395,502.16 of which $4,094,743.18 was spent for the new coaches and part payment for the two new diesel-electric locomotives.
MECHANICAL WORKSHOPS
37. General. All locomotives, carriages, wagons, motor cars, rail buses, machinery and other plant including overhead lighting of stations and yards were maintained in an efficient state during the year under review.
38. Locomotives.
Locomotive drivers were taught in the old days to use cut-offs higher than 25%, because with the older type of locomotives the nozzles, stacks and exhaust passages were relatively speaking small and a cut-off lower than 25% caused excessive compression resulting
resulting in pounding. The 2-8-0 Austerity locomotives which are comparatively modern have large exhaust passages, large nozzles, and correspondingly large stacks, and it is possible to use lower cut-off. A start was made at the beginning of the year to re-train the drivers to use a low cut-off-as low as 12% whenever possible. The result was that there was a marked reduction of crank pin bearing wear due to better cushioning and a very good saving in fuel. No hot rod bearings have been reported since a low cut-off was used.
The continuous breakage of mild steel gudgeon plate studs for cross-heads gave cause for concern.
"D" class steel gudgeon plate studs were therefore fitted to all 2-8-0 Austerity locomotives in place of mild steel ones at the beginning of the year. Since then there have been no further breakages.
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