Railroad Regulation Research Articles

Government Regulation of Railroads in the United States

long experience in the regulation of railroads, but the problems connected therewith have not been finally solved. Indeed, the recent rapid development of the agencies, the facilities, and the services of transportation, accompanied by rapid economic, social, and political changes, has made the regulation of railroads a larger and more complicated task. The present situation of the railroads and of the relation of the government to them is especially critical and urgent. Congress, during the present session, will have few if any questions of greater economic and social significance upon which to legislate.

Railroad Regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission

Railroad Regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission

Regulation of Transport Agencies

One of the two principal duties given Mr. Joseph B. Eastman as Federal Coordinator of Transportation under the Emergency Railroad Transportation Act of 1933 was to consider ways and means of improving transportation conditions throughout the country, including ability of the carriers to improve their properties, furnish service, and charge rates which would promote the commerce and industry of the country, and to recommend to the President and Congress legislation which would further these ends in the public interest. In formulating regulatory policy to cope with the unsatisfactory condition deriving from the oversupply of transport facilities which he found to exist as a result of an estimated 2.5 billion dollar capital outlay in the United States between 192.o and 1932. and incomplete utilization of our transport facilities during the depression, Mr. Eastman considered two alternatives: (i) relaxation of railroad regulation to permit the rail carriers unrestrained or greater freedom to compete with other agencies; or (2.) extension of regulation, or a greater degree of regulation, to the important agencies competing with the railroads. The legislation actually recommended rejects throwing the field open to competition unlimited by governmental control of rates and supply of service and presents a program, which, if eventually enacted by Congress, will extend to a reorganized Interstate Commerce Commission authority to regulate interstate air, motor, and water carriers in a manner substantially similar to regulation of the railroads. The basic theme in all of the Coordinator's more important regulatory proposals is that economic coordination of our various transport agencies can be achieved only by a controlled competition so designed by governmental authority that each

The Commodities Clause and the Regulation of Industrial Railroads

The Commodities Clause and the Regulation of Industrial Railroads

Simplification of Railroad Regulation

N 1887, following a decade of antirailroad agitation in the granger states, Congress passed an to Regulate Commerce. This act created a commission of five members. It prohibited unjust discrimination and pooling of freight or earnings. It required that transportation charges be just and reasonable and that they must be published, but did not give the Commission power to make them. The act contained the first long and short haul clause and authorized a uniform accounting system. In short, Congress embodied in the law the fundamentals of a right relationship between carrier and public, but declined to clothe the Commission with more than mild supervisory authority. In the next three sessions of Congress regulation was extended. The Commission was empowered to summon witnesses and compel testimony and the production of documents. The Safety Act was passed in 1893, and an act requiring the reporting of railway accidents in 1901. The Elkins Act, aimed at rebates, became a law in 1903.

Cooperation between the Interstate Commerce Commission and the State Commissions in Railroad Regulation

Cooperation between the Interstate Commerce Commission and the State Commissions in Railroad Regulation

Railroad Regulation by the National Government

Railroad Regulation by the National Government

Railroad Regulation since 1920. 1931 Supplement

Railroad Regulation since 1920. 1931 Supplement

Mr. Justice Brandeis and the Regulation of Railroads

Mr. Justice Brandeis and the Regulation of Railroads

Railroad Regulation since 1920

Railroad Regulation since 1920

The Interstate Commerce Commission and the Railroad Terminal Problem

I. Introduction, 462. — Failure of railroad regulation to accomplish the larger and ultimate object of regulation, 463. — The present problems of terminal regulation, 464. — The six categories of regulation, 465. —II. Analysis of Interstate Commerce Commission's Policy, 465.—The obligations of a rail carrier to perform switching services, 466. — The obligations of a carrier to build switch connections and to charge demurrage established, 471. — The obligations of a carrier to absorb terminal charges in certain traffic not effectively controlled in the absence of separation of terminal and Une haul charges, 474. — The obligations of a carrier to permit joint use of its terminal facilities not successfully established, 480. — The legality of terminal associations established, 483. — III. Conclusion: The Strength of the Interstate Commerce Commission's Policy, 484. — The conservative interpretation of the provisions for joint use of facilities, 486. — Unsatisfactory control of terminal charges, 486. — Need of a practical policy which conforms to recent conceptions of public interest, 490

Railroad Regulation Since 1920

Railroad Regulation Since 1920

Railroad Regulation since 1920.

Railroad Regulation since 1920.

Motor-Carrier Regulation and its Economic Bases

Introduction, 604. — Circumstances under which motor-carrier regulation has developed, 606. — Characteristics which explain the regulation of railroads and other utilities largely absent, 608. — Restriction of entrance must be distinguished from other phases of regulation, 613. — Such restriction only partially explained by the nature of the industry, 615. — Protection of railway interests the dominant consideration, 620. — Delicate problems involved in granting of certificates of convenience and necessity, 625. — Difficulties and dangers of regulation exemplified by motor freight regulation, 632. — The theory of special highway use improperly reflected in motor-carrier regulation and taxation, 639. — Conclusion, 646.

Railroad Regulation Since 1920

Railroad Regulation Since 1920

The Filed Rate in Public Utility Law: A Study in Mechanical Jurisprudence

' See the writer's The Public Utility Concept in American Law (I928) 4I HARV. L. REV. 277, for the history and the processes of the labelling. 2 Forty-seven states have public utility acts; only Delaware was without one. See Note (I926) 25 MICH. L. REV. I78. In I927 the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws tentatively adopted a Uniform Act drafted by Professor E. B. Stason of Michigan. PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING (I927) 72I. It does not include the regulation of steam railroads, and it is largely concerned with the agency for, and mechanics of, regulation. The duties of the utilities are stated-and properly-in the usual general terms, and occupy only three pages out o,f forty-one.

The Inheritance Tax

T HE expenditures of all political bodies have been continually increasing. In normal times, the public has kept demanding that its governmental units undertake new and expensive functions, the cost of which has not always been considered. Some of the ordinary costly functions of modern governmental units are the establishment and maintenance of educational systems; the provision for defectives, delinquents and dependents; the protection to person, property and health; the building and maintenance of highways; and the regulation of railroads and public utilities, as well as numerous other forms of regulation. When an emergency arises, such as the Great War, expenditures, especially those of federal governments, mount to almost unbelievable heights. All these increased expenditures must be met by increased revenues. So long as wealth and population increased more rapidly than the demand for additional funds, the individual burden was not increasing and, consequently, little interest was shown in the expenditures and revenues of political bodies. As the new burdens became more noticeable, citizens became concerned about the use to which funds were put, and about the justice of the methods by which they were secured. This has led fiscal officials, in their search for additional revenues, to use sources which will not only be productive of funds, but which can be upheld under the principles of justice, and which will cause a minimum of opposition from the public. The inheritance tax has been one source of revenue, the use of which has been greatly extended under these conditions, and which is likely to be extended much further in the future.

Why Railroad Regulation Has Failed

Why Railroad Regulation Has Failed

The Old System of Railroad Regulation

The Old System of Railroad Regulation

State regulation of railroads in the south

State regulation of railroads in the south