Business: Point of No Return

At first glance, the Lehigh Valley Railroad's report to its employees gave stockholders cause for cheer last week. Lehigh had grossed $80,009,497 and netted $7,205,179 last year, compared to a $5,846,985 net in 1951. Furthermore, said President C. A. Major, since 1948 the road had cut its $135 million debt down to $79,500,000, and had exchanged all its coal-burning locomotives for diesels. But the new equipment, Major explained, had cost some $23 million, which Lehigh will have to pay off at the rate of $3,000,000 a year. Because every cent Lehigh made in 1952; was plowed back into the road, President Major was forced to add to his good-year report some news all too familiar to Lehigh's long-patient shareholders' 1952 is therefore the 21st successive year in which the stockholders have received no return whatever."