---

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 4, 1992                   TAG: 9202040030
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

---

BALMY DAYS NOT BOON TO ALL

Warm winter days are coming too often for Frank Farmer.

"Our business is based on heating," the president of Roanoke Gas Co. said Monday. "We can't make our authorized revenues . . . unless we have normal winters - which we haven't had in three years."

January sales were 3.7 percent ahead of the same month last year, and so far the utility is about 9 percent ahead of where it was last year. But that's not saying much, Farmer cautioned, because the winter of '91 set records for high temperatures.

"Right now we're running 9 percent colder than last year," he said, "but 14 percent warmer than normal."

The sunny, unseasonably warm days are no more welcome at Norfolk Southern Corp., the transportation company that makes a large chunk of its money each year hauling coal to utilities.

The company loaded 18,573 cars during the week ended Sunday, 13 percent below the 21,360 loaded in the same week last year. Bill Bales, NS vice president for coal and ore traffic, blamed the decline on the weather and continuing sluggishness in steel and related industries.

"The economy has not changed to affect our business favorably," he said.

Worse, utility companies - with slack demand from industrial customers pinched by the recession and residential users warmed by the sun - are operating with huge stockpiles accumulated from long-term contracts.

"When we look at volume, the weather hurts us most," he said.

Indeed, deliveries to utilities account for more than 50 percent of the Norfolk-based railroad's business - as much as 60 million tons in a good year.

---