Minus $5,000,000

As critical as any caucus of dissatisfied commuters, the new team that last month took over the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad took out last week after ex-President Patrick B. McGinnis.

Financial Vice President John P. Rutherfurd, once a McGinnis man, said that McGinnis had drawn much too pretty a picture of the railroad's net earnings. For the first eleven months of 1955, McGinnis had announced earnings of $9,275,000. Rutherfurd drastically cut the figure. His total for the full year came to only $4,246,000, or 61-c- a share after deductions for sinking funds and preferred dividends. This was less than half 1954's $9,090,000 ($5.18 a share).

Looking over the old management's calculations, Rutherfurd and his finance committee agreed that some of the railroad's cash reserves were too low, accord ingly replenished them out of current income. About $2,200,000, for example, went to fill up the reserve for liability claims. By the time Rutherfurd and his men had finished editing the McGinnis management's books, they had a total charge against income of $4,395,000. To this they added a $634,000 operating loss for the month of December, caused largely by rough weather and aging equipment, then subtracted the whole amount from the previous eleven-month figure.

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