The results on the completed sections of the Bagdad Railway were equally promising, as will be indicated by the following table:[20]
Year Kilometres Passengers Freight Gross Total
in Tons Receipts per Government
Operation Kilometre Subsidy
(Francs) (Francs)
1906 200 29,629 13,693 1,368.83 624,028.21
1907 200 37,145 23,643 1,754.44 546,129.77
1908 200 52,759 15,941 1,839.86 529,443.12
1909 200 57,026 15,364 1,936.72 509,565.45
1910 200 71,665 27,756 2,571.43 381,135.58
1911 238 95,884 38,046 3,379.34 238,166.59
1912 609 288,833 57,670 5,315.67 278,785.25
1913 609 407,474 78,645 3,786.53 216,295.17
1914 887 597,675 116,194 8,177.97 2,939,983.00
Figures in italics indicate payments to the Turkish Government of its share of the receipts in excess of the guarantee of 4,500 francs per kilometre.
The improvement in the economic conditions of Anatolia, and the success of the German railways as business enterprises, were sources of great satisfaction and profit to the Imperial Ottoman Government. Not only was the Treasury receiving revenue from the railway lines which had formerly been a drain upon the financial resources of the empire, but the receipts from taxes in the regions traversed by the railways were constantly increasing. As early as 1893 the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works announced that the increase in tithes and the increased value of farm lands in Asia Minor had more than justified expenditures by the Sultan's Government in subsidies to the Anatolian Railway.[21] For those portions of Anatolia which were served by the Railway, the amount of the tithes had almost doubled in twenty years: in 1889, the year after the award of the Anatolian concession, $639,760 was collected; in 1898, $948,070; in 1908, $1,240,450. In
