Railroad company

“ The railroad company is an intrastate and interstate carrier of freight and passengers, and, among other commodities, transports coal on its line, which, during the years 1911, 1912, and 1913, was shipped in interstate commerce by producers thereof on through rates established by the railroad company. ”

“ The contract between an express company and a railroad company usually provides that the express company shall have the exclusive right to operate upon the lines named for a definite term of years; that all matter carried on passenger trains, except personal baggage, corpses, milk cans, dogs, and certain other commodities, shall be turned over by the railroad company to the express company; that the railroad company shall transport to and from all points on its lines all matter in charge of the express company ”

“ The points of difference between the railroad and other corporations are many and great. It cannot be disputed that a railroad is a public corporation, and its business pertains to and greatly affects the public, and that it is of a public nature. The company may not charge unreasonable prices for transportation, nor can it make unjust discriminations, nor select its patrons, nor go out of business when it chooses, while a mere trading or manufacturing company may do all these things. ”

“ Almost every railroad company in the United States and Canada entered one or more locomotives for the races, which were advertised for the last week of July, 1892, and, notwithstanding the large sums offered for premiums, and the great expense of building and maintaining the race course, the enterprise proved exceedingly profitable to its projectors. ”

“ Railroads are not like stages or steamboats, which, if furnishing no profit at one place, and under one prescribed rate of transportation, can be taken elsewhere and put to use at other places and under other circumstances. The railroad must stay, and, as a permanent investment, its value to its owners may not be destroyed. ”

“ A co-operative company or a consolidated company of any honest and sensible variety, owning both the railroads and the steamboat lines, would divide the traffic in such a way as to secure the maximum economy and convenience, and would make a reasonable payment for the extra speed and other advantages of railway transit the main condition of selecting that method of transportation, with an option in the company under specified conditions to facilitate the full loading of trains and boats through the adjustment of rates. ”

“ The railroad companies, in every one of whose trains is a postal car, bearing the orders of the executive to subordinate officers scattered all through the wide country, and by which the domestic policy and operations of the government are directed, are its agents, also discharging most necessary, valuable, and efficient service. ”

“ Every railway company * * * has recognized the right of the public to demand transportation by the railway facilities which the public has permitted to be created of that class of matter which is known as 'express matter." Express companies have undoubtedly invested their capital and built up their business in the hope and expectation of securing, and keeping for themselves, such railway facilities as they needed, and railroad companies have likewise relied upon the express business as one of their important sources of income. ”

“ Its influence has grown steadily with the growth of competition by water and motor, with the growth in the size of the individual railroad system, with the growth in the dependence of railroads for their revenues upon long-haul freight traffic and with the growing length of the average haul. ”

“ Billions of dollars are invested in railroad properties. Millions of passengers, as well as millions of tons of freight, are moved each year by the railroad companies, and this transportation is carried on by a multitude of corporations working in different parts of the country, and subjected to varying and diverse conditions. ”

“ One operator, after being forced for years in this way to sell his product to the railway mining company at a very low price, was obliged to build a railway of his own in order to reach other lines of railroad and so have a fighting chance for cars. ”

“ At present a motor service is auxiliary and supplemental to rail service, in the Commission's view, when the railroad-affiliated motor carrier in a subordinate capacity aids the railroad in its rail operations by enabling the railroad to give better service or operate more cheaply rather than independently competing with other motor carriers. ”

“ But making the number of local trains dependent upon the volume of business is but to say that if a railroad has enough interstate business, besides its local business, to cause it to run one local and two interstate commerce trains each way each day, the increased trains thus required for the essential purposes of interstate commerce shall be local trains, while another railroad, which has no interstate commerce, but only local business, requiring but one train a day, shall continue only to operate the one local train. ”

“ The balance is built and operated on private right of way, and goes around, rather than through, the cities. The tracks are standard gauge and of standard railroad construction, were, at the time they were laid, of higher class than those of the Southern Railway Company in the same territory, were intended for handling substantial interchange freight traffic in connection with steam railroads, have the same ruling grades as the latter in the same territory, and are of 80-pound rail. ”

“ That section is a part of a chapter relating to railroad companies, and, as amended by the act of April 13, 1889, provides:
'Each company shall cause three, each way, of its regular trains carrying passengers, if so many are run daily, Sundays excepted, to stop at a station, city or village, containing over three thousand inhabitants, for a time sufficient to receive and let off passengers ”

“ Railways have refused cars to persons desiring to ship railroad ties which the railways did not wish to have go out of their own field. [244]
A Michigan railroad neglected to furnish the Richmond Elevator Company with cars in which to ship the hay the company had contracted to deliver, although the railroad was all the while supplying other shippers with cars for hay and straw, etc. ”

“ Necessarily, the same principles apply in reference to the use of the company's station house and depot grounds; for they are held in the same right as are its road, its locomotives, and other property or appliances employed in the transportation of passengers and freight, and must be devoted primarily to public use to the extent necessary for the public objects intended to be accomplished by the construction and maintenance of the railroad as a highway. ”

“ On December 31, 1911, there were 2,160,408 freight-cars in the United States. At $800 a car this means a capital investment of $1,728,326,400. If this large amount of capital is not used steadily and economically, there is direct loss to the business of the country. But remember that the very livelihood of a railway company depends upon its obtaining the utmost possible service from its freight-cars, and there is no phase of operation to which a railway-manager gives more attention than to the most effective distribution and prompt handling of equipment. ”

“ We hear no complaints in Congress or elsewhere because our farmers and manufacturers are prosperous; in fact, we are all inclined to boast about it.
The last annual report of the Interstate Commerce Commission gives the aggregate capitalization of the railroads in the United States as over $13,000,000,000, showing that the railroad investment in our country is second in amount only to that in agriculture. It is estimated that the number of railroad stockholders today is over 400,000. We know that in 1907 over 1,600,000 men were employed on American railroads. ”

“ In the former, however, it is complicated more often by the fact that the lines of a railroad extend through many States, with terminals in one or two, and, further, that the railroads have many subsidiary, controlled, or dependent companies, such as coal, lighterage, terminal, car, warehouse, contracting, elevator, stock yard, and supply companies, often owned, wholly or in part, by men in the railroad management. ”

“ It is doubtful whether the aggregate plant used in all manufacturing industries can equal it in value. The capital engaged in banking is but a trifle beside it. The world's whole stock of money of every kind—gold, silver, and paper—would purchase only a third of its railroads.
Yet these facts by no means measure the whole importance of the railroad in the modern industrial system. The business methods of to-day are in one sense the direct result of improved means of transportation. The railroad enables the large establishment to reach the markets of the world with its products ”

“ The daily lives of the employees and security-holders of the railroads are affected by the success or failure of the railroads, and they are entitled to protection and encouragement from the people and the Government equal to that accorded other citizens. The owners of the railroads hold securities worth at par nearly $14,000,000,000. The average net return from railroad operation for the year ending June 30, 1909, was 4.07 per cent. In 1905 the net income from manufacturing institutions was 13.06 per cent. ”

“ Frequently a railroad as a plant is adequate to manufacture more transportation than it can sell. The other fellow is getting too much of the competitive business. Investigation often shows that railroad solicitors can sell a shipper no freight or passenger transportation, because his salesman receives no orders from the railroad’s purchasing agent. ”

“ The growth of the railway corporations of the United States has been typical of the evolution of industrial organisation in this country. The early railway corporations were small. The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, for instance, comprised the lines of four companies. In 1850 the road connecting Albany and Buffalo included the lines of seven companies. During the last fifty years most of the small companies have united to form the corporations which now operate our large railway systems. ”

“ The second is that most manufacturers can warehouse their product, hold for rising prices, and sell at some future time. The railroad cannot do this. It must have ample transportation ready at any given time and place, and if it is not used then and there it is lost, not only to the railroad, but to the consumer. The manufacturer of transportation must always be ready to furnish the maximum amount of transportation for the use of the American people. ”

“ There are three important differences, however, between the manufacturing business and the railroad business. The first is that manufacturers can close their establishments, reduce their expenses to the necessary caretakers and lose the interest on their investment until such time as their inclinations or the demands for their particular articles make it worth while to operate their plants. The railroad, however, cannot stop; once started, it must go on unless the owners choose to abandon it absolutely, and lose not only all chance of interest on their money, but the entire principal as well. ”

“ A national railroad structure well operated, with efficiency, with economy, with vision, with a broad human relationship, will not have to worry very much about the sale of its securities or about interference from fussy regulatory bodies. ”

“ It is stated on good authority, that the life-insurance companies doing business in the state of New York hold one eighth of the entire railroad-bond issue of the country. There are about 20,000,000 policy-holders in these companies, and they are very much interested in the soundness of this great investment. There are 16,108 holders of Northern Pacific stock, of which 5675, or 35 per cent, are women, and presumably the same relation obtains in other large railroads. ”

“ The express companies, in addition to any stock bonus they may have given for the monopoly of the express business on a rail line or system of lines, pay to the railroads on which they operate forty to fifty-eight per cent of the gross receipts from the express business handled.
9. The railroads furnish cars free to the express companies. They also furnish depot accommodations and facilities for storing and handling express shipments. In some instances, as much as 90 per cent of the handling of express shipping is done by railroad employes. ”

“ This, in the growing, progressive, and expanding states of the West, is a steady and constant complaint, and it requires much time, money, and energy for the railroad-owners and officers to keep the supply of transportation up to the demand. The complaints come in for more freight-cars, for more passenger-trains, for better passenger-stations, for more side-tracks, for more switch-engines, for under-crossings and over-crossings in growing cities, for branch lines into new and undeveloped sections of the country ”

“ The evolution of the so-called store department on most railways has been a striking instance of one-sided development. A railway exists to manufacture and sell an intangible commodity, transportation, not necessarily to carry either a large or small stock of material and supplies. The purchasing agent tells us in good faith how much money he has saved the company by time spent in driving good bargains. He is not in a position to know how many men have been worked to poor advantage, or have been idle, while waiting for proper tools, materials and supplies. ”

“ As it is, the enormous consumption of railroad ties presents a problem concerning a continual supply of these indispensable features of railroad construction which railroad men all over the country are beginning to seriously consider. There are two hundred thousand miles of railroads in the United States, which, with twenty-five hundred ties to the mile, require for their construction 500,000,000 ties, or calling the life of a tie eight years, an annual supply of 62,000,000. ”