Record capital budget on track for '76



Record capital spending of $179.2 million budgeted by Southern Railway for 1976 includes nearly $95 million, or more than half of the total, for new cars and locomotives like the types in this photograph. At the top of Southern's shopping list are new locomotives, 30 to be purchased for $13.9 million. Immediately behind the locomotive is one of the 974 open-top hopper cars being bought and behind that a one-of-its-kind 375-ton capacity heavy-duty flatcar. Other cars Southern is buying, in order following the flatcar, are a covered hopper (300), pulpwood car (500), boxcar (1,038), high-side gondola (100) and caboose (20). Other capital budget items are welded rail (Southern will lay 280 miles at a cost of nearly $9.5 million) and new communications and signals improvements, costing nearly $2 million. And more than $12.6 million will be spent for yards and terminals and. nearly $5.8 million for bridges, trestles and culverts. The 1976 budget is 28 percent higher than the $140.1 million capital expenditure program of 1975.