Mahlon Pitney

“ In the first of these, the state law absolutely required that a railroad should furnish a certain number of cars at a specified day, regardless of every other consideration except strikes and other public calamities, making no exception in cases of a sudden congestion of traffic, an actual inability to furnish cars by reason of their temporary and unavoidable detention in other states or in other places within the same state, or any allowance for interference with traffic occasioned by wrecks or other accidents upon the same or other roads ”

“ The statute now in question merely requires a railroad company to furnish cars within a reasonable time after demand made for them, and the question, What is a reasonable time? is to be determined in view of the requirements of interstate commerce. That the operation of the statute is thus limited in practice, and not merely in theory, is shown by the history of the case at bar. ”

“ It was defendant that endeavored to import the question of car distribution into the case by introducing the evidence above referred to, and by requesting an instruction (which the court accordingly gave) to the effect that if defendant had not and could not procure sufficient coal cars to furnish all of the operators on its lines with all the cars desired and demanded by them, and did fairly and equitably distribute its available cars among the operators, it discharged its whole duty to plaintiff. ”