Rail carrier

“ The bars of the trans-continental railroad had careened the horizon with their mighty leverage, and let the cargo through—the very cargo for which they waited in the old days with their faces toward the rising sun, like a praying Israelite. The locomotive had wheeled the rolling globe a half revolution, brought the tide of commerce to the right-about, like a soldier upon his heel. It has proved to be anything but what it was suspected of being—the locomotive has—for, made to be a common carrier, a gigantic, quicktime dray-horse, it is a civilizer, a builder of cities ”

“ Inasmuch as a railroad company is bound to carry both passengers and freight, the obligation of the appellee required it to furnish all necessary rolling stock and equipment for the suitable and proper operation of the railroad as a carrier of passengers, no less than as a carrier of freight. It cannot be said that the carrier of passengers in a car attached to a freight train is a suitable and proper operation of a railroad, so far as the carriage of passengers is concerned. ”

“ In Seatrain's service, freight is transported to the company's dock in railroad cars, the cars and their contents are then lifted onto Seatrain's vessels, and at destination the cars are unloaded and delivered by rail to the consignee. This rail-water-rail service is similar to railroad boxcar service, in that it permits carriage from shipper to consignee without breaking bulk when both shipper and consignee are located on railroad sidings.
Railroad 'piggy-back,' or trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC) , service is like that provided by Sea-Land. ”

“ Interior points are now enabled to buy direct, either in large or small quantities, from initial sources of supply, and without the delay and expense incident to shipment to river-distributing points, and trans-shipment by rail or steamboat or hauling by waggon. Rail transportation is also more frequent, regular, rapid and reliable ”

“ The train is practical only because the railroad company maintains freight and passenger stations, foreign and domestic agents, and all the detailed [Pg 277] force that a modern railroad requires. Furthermore, it sends its trains over certain routes at certain specified intervals, ready to move freight and passengers as they are ready to be moved. So must a shipping line be operated. Ships must be where they are needed, else freight accumulates or is diverted to other lines. ”

“ For every hour of the day there swept over it, pounding at it, the monstrous freight locomotives, weighing a hundred tons, marvels of strength and power, pulling long lines of heavy cars, laden with coal and iron and grain, hurrying to give the Old World of the abundance of the New. And every hour, too, there flashed over it, at a speed almost lightning-like, the through passenger trains—the engines slim, supple, panting, thoroughbred; the lumbering mail-cars and day coaches; the luxurious Pullmans far heavier than any freight-car. ”

“ The ties are carried on a common freight car behind, and conveyed by an endless chain over the top of the machinery, laid down in their places on the track, and, when enough are laid, a rail is put down on each side in proper position and spiked down. ”

“ In our opinion the words 'common carrier by railroad,' as used in the act, mean one who operates a railroad as a means of carrying for the public-that is to say, a railroad company acting as a common carrier. ”

“ All details as to the entraining and detraining of troops and the loading and unloading of stores will be arranged in conjunction with the technical officials by the railway transport establishment, who will meet all troops arriving to entrain, inform commanders of the times and places of entrainment, and allot trucks and carriages to units in bulk. They will see that the necessary rolling stock is provided by the railway officials, that only the prescribed amount of baggage is loaded, and that no unauthorised person travels by rail. ”

“ Thanks to the railway, an army can now draw its supplies from the whole of the interior of the home country—provided [66] that the lines of communication can be kept open; and, with the help not only of regular rail services but of stores and magazines en route those supplies can be forwarded to railhead in just such quantities as they may be wanted. Under these conditions the feeding of an army in the field should be assured regardless alike of the possible scanty resources of the country in which it is engaged and of its own distance from the base of supplies. ”

“ Finally it furnishes cars for the shipment of perishable fruits, etc., and keeps them iced, the railroads paying for the same. It has no control over motive power or over the movement of the cars that it furnishes as above, and in short, notwithstanding some argument to the contrary, is not a common carrier subject to the act. It is true that the definition of transportation in § 1 of the act includes such instrumentalities as the Armour Car Lines lets to the railroads. ”

“ In the years which followed the actual inception of the railroad in the United States, railway travel was fraught with discomfort and inconvenience beyond the realization of the present day. Travel by canal boat had at least offered a relative degree of comfort, for here comfortable berths in airy cabins were provided as well as good meals and entertainment, but the locomotive, by its greatly increased speed over the plodding train of tow mules, instantly commanded the situation, and as the mileage of the pioneer roads increased, travel by boat proportionately languished. ”

“ Then a railway must be regarded as a delicate piece of transportation machinery which can easily be thrown out of order, and is capable of being worked only by railwaymen as skilled in the knowledge of its mechanism, and as experienced in the details of its complicated operation, as military officers themselves are assumed to be in the technicalities of their own particular duties. The Chief Goods Manager of a leading line of railway who offered to take the place of a General at the seat of war would arouse much mirth in the Army at his own expense. ”

“ The general rule is that it is the responsibility of the carrier, as part of the transportation service covered by the line-haul rate, to 'deliver' the goods by placing them in such a position as to make them accessible to the consignee. Normally unloading is not a part of the delivery and is performed by the consignee. In accordance with these principles, the railroad spots the car on the team track in its yards in the destination city, and the consignee is given appropriate free time in which to unload. ”

“ Most of the modern American ferry-boats taking railway trains have two, three, or four sets of rails on their decks, and accommodate their passengers on a deck above, where the saloons and cabins are situated. Where the railway-level is different on the two sides of the water, the boat or the landing-stage is provided with hoisting machinery which raises the train to the desired level, a truck or two or a passenger coach at a time. ”

“ He is only liable to carry to such places as he holds himself out to be a common carrier to and from, and then only to carry such descriptions of goods as he professes to carry. As will be seen hereafter, there are certain articles of which railway companies are not, and decline to be, common carriers. ”

“ On shot the locomotive, like an arrow from the bow, the men throwing over the ties until the train was well nigh unloaded, when just as they were close to the curve by which the train arrives at the station, they saw the dreaded cars strike a tie, or something equally of service, and with a desperate plunge rush down the embankment, some fifteen feet, to the little valley, and creek below. ”

“ Between the shifts and modifications of the passenger schedule, the freight trains play a game of their own. They have no right to the track at any given time, but are supposed to be on it when it is free, and to make the best time they can between passenger trains. A freight train, on a single-track road, gets anywhere at all only by stealing bases. ”

“ As you land you are struck on all sides with the unusual activity around you. Long sinuous trains of loaded cargo trucks are coming and going, locomotive whistles warning the pedestrian to beware, lines of rails intersecting each other, crowds of lumpers, and the busy air of a large shipping centre bewilder you, and you are carried back to some old-world port where ships of all nations call and disgorge their lading. ”

“ Everywhere hacks, private carriages, cabs, wagons, light and heavy, and carts, frail or strong, carts for bread or meat, for bricks or milk, were bearing fugitives--old men, young mothers, grandmothers, maidens and children--with their trunks, bales, bundles, slaves and provisions--toward the Jackson Railroad to board the first non-military train they could squeeze into, and toward the New and Old Basins to sleep on schooner decks under the open stars in the all-night din of building deckhouses. ”

“ The remarkable success which has attended the concentration of large bodies of Volunteers gathered from all quarters of the Kingdom for military functions and reviews, on more than one occasion, has shown the extraordinary capabilities of the British railway system for military transport on a great scale. Rolling stock is abundant. The more important lines in England have a double line of rails; some have four or more rails. Gradients, moreover, as a rule are easy, an important point, since troop trains are very heavy. ”

“ When he found the rate of speed getting too much for him, he was to mount a ladder, but not put in appearance on the roof until positive that the crew was not around.
The crew of a freight train consists of the fireman and engineer, who remain in the locomotive's cab; a conductor who, while the train is in motion, generally remains in his caboose, and two brakeman—front and rear—supposed to remain on top, but who, after the train has started, usually betake themselves to the engine-cab and caboose respectively. ”

“ Five locomotives, of from 12 to 18 tons weight, were provided, and there were about forty ordinary side-tip ballast wagons—all entirely unsuitable for use on a military railway.
At first the men belonging to the contractors' staff—navvies and others—were entrusted with the working of the line. ”

“ In considering railway law, nearly every thing appears to turn upon the great question of what constitutes a "common carrier," and if this point is once clearly established in a given case, the rights, liabilities, and immunities of a common carrier are pretty clearly defined by the authorities. We learn, then, that a "common carrier" is one who undertakes the conveyance of goods or passengers for hire or reward, and therefore stands in the light of a bailee. ”

“ They are, in fact, made the subject of exhaustive and continuous study alike by military officers specially entrusted with the task and by railway managers commanding all the technical knowledge requisite for making arrangements calculated to ensure the prompt and efficient satisfaction of all such demands for military rail-transport as may, with whatever urgency, and under whatever conditions, some day be put forward. ”

“ Locomotives, carriages and trucks on lines which are not themselves likely to be wanted for military transport should be available for use on the lines that will be so wanted, in order that all the rolling stock of all the railways in all parts of the country or of the States concerned can, at a time of possibly the gravest emergency, be concentrated or employed on whatever lines, or in whatever direction, additional transport facilities may be needed. ”

“ Have you not seen cars pulled to pieces in big trains, have you not seen freight delayed in a manner to suggest to an innocent bystander that the road was perhaps running its last train and giving its cars their last load?
The inevitable tendency of the big train is to hold back and combine in large lots cars destined to the same point and to the same consignee. When a whole train can be unloaded at the ship’s side at tidewater, or at a large consuming plant, the system is ideal. ”

“ The railway is predominantly a carrier of freight. The freight traffic consists to a large extent of raw products such as sugar beets, milk, tomatoes and peas moving to factories, canneries or processing plants, and of the manufactured products moving outbound from the plants to connecting railroads. ”

“ The use of steel passenger cars calls for larger locomotives in that class of service, and the American policy, consistently followed for years, of increasing the freight-train load, required the use of more powerful locomotives in freight service. The average freight-train load, in tons of freight, grew from less than 400 tons in 1910 to more than 700 tons in 1920. Not all of this increase is to be attributed to the heavier locomotive. Reductions in grades and curvature have made heavier trains possible. ”

“ In every considerable town, there are whole fleets of wagons that reach to the outermost limits, both for collection and for distribution. In this service the automobile truck has begun readily to displace the older type of horse and wagon. The wagon service brings the express package, no matter how small or how large, to a central distributing depot, where all are gathered together and sent, in through railroad cars, to their destinations, being handled very largely as we have seen the L. C. L. freight handled in the great transfer houses of the railroads. ”

“ Great Britain will never go back to her old extravagances of the days of unbridled transport competition. True it is that [Pg 284] since the signing of the Armistice her railway service, both passenger and freight, has been radically increased, but to nowhere near the point that it had reached in 1913. Fine frills, like the running of fast non-stop expresses between London and the ocean landing at Fishguard, in South Wales, to cite a single instance out of many, have been abandoned; never to be taken up again in your day or mine. ”