My theory is that as a condition of those charters that the railroads had to carry both passengers and freight and at reasonble rates and fair fairs. That in reality the very essence of the railways corperate existance is not private but is in fact a child of the goverment that created in the first place. That CSX Gulf Coast Line was created by a charter from the states that run through it and thus should be required to to perform the public service that it was created for in the first place aka Amtrak.
In the early days of our Republic, business enterprises of any sort that were organized as a joint stock company required a charter from the state legislature in order to do business. Legal requirements were tailored to fit the needs of each company at that time. It wasn’t until about the 1840’s or so that business law as we currently think of it began to be enacted to allow more flexibility in operation and organization.
roundstick- are you from Cleveland Ohio by chance?
I believe the charters also bestowed “supernatural” rights onto the chartered entity? Nothing “hocus-pocus” or biblical, just stuff like eminent domain powers.
And with that did come responsibilities to serve the public good.
I believe getting a charter goes back to English common law when a royal charter was used to start a major enterprise. I suspect part of the reason the railroads like U.P. needed a federal charter was that they were going to be building lines over several states (and territories which were directly controlled by Congress). A railroad just in one state could just be chartered in that state.
Of course, the federal railroad charters usually involved some incentive, like a bonus if this much track was laid by this date, etc. Often it was granted land on alternating sides of the lines it built, which it could then use or sell.
Today, a new company has to register with the state - usually the Secretary of State’s office - for each state they operate in. This ensures the company name is registered and can’t be used by others, amongst other things. To have employees they’d have to register with the federal and state governments to do withholding.
The eminent domain powers is a big one for railroads, which generally came with a requirement for the RR to act as a common carrier. Another advantage of a corporation is the limitation of liability for the stockholders. An example of the latter is that the stockholders are not liable for the debts of the corporation, so there has been a lot of dubious transactions where a parent corporation loads up a subsidiary with debt and then lets the subsidiary declare bankruptcy - I seem to recall that the D&RGW unloaded some of its debt on the RGS before the RGS was liquidated through bankruptcy.
“Public interest, convenience or necessity”.
Doubtful. Far too articulate and knowledgeable.
[quote user=“Convicted One”]
I believe the charters also bestowed “supernatural” rights onto the chartered entity? Nothing “hocus-pocus” or biblical, just stuff like eminent domain powers.
And with that did come responsibilities to serve the public good.
I dunno, maybe it has to do with differing levels of other factors involved. In any event, the M.O. seems quite familiar.
I was hoping that you’d ring-in on this one. [;)]
Sincere question: In historical accounts of rail passenger service, I often see the term “accommodation run”. Which could be anything from a dedicated train, to a passenger car tacked onto a freight.
Is that where the term “accomodation” comes from? The obligation to fulfill (accomodate) the requirement to serve the public interest? And in that same spirit, one of the primary goals of Amtrak to relieve the railroads of that obligation?
C1: from my experience, I would agree with what you are saying.
I would think this is in the same vein as a “franchise run,” undertaken to meet such requirements. That term probably mostly applies to trolleys and the like.
I have always understood an ‘accommodation train’ to be a train run to connect ‘secondary’ points to a line operating a separate passenger train (usually of greater capacity or speed or operating between more major parts of the general system of transportation) so that passengers from points that would otherwise not be rail-served can be ‘accommodated’. Run and scheduled as a convenience to the riders, presumably for “financial advantage”. Of course, once the train was scheduled, it would become subject to the same regulations as any passenger train, depending on whether it operated interstate or intrastate…
The original place I saw one of these discussed was either in one of the Beebe books or an article in Trains, concerning a Hattiesburg accommodation train… the specific reference and picture of the somewhat rustic-by-then equipment may be familiar to some of you.
I don’t ever recall seeing that this was a mandated function of state or federal regulation, even when the idea was intentionally stood on its head during the bad old train-off days to make connection as difficult or inconvenient as possible… or indeed, as with LV to Hazleton, where the ‘accommodation’ train had to be retained after the connecting trains were discontinued.
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “Accomodation Train” as:
“a train that stops at all or nearly all stations : a local train”.
Like many railroad terms, it can be hard to work out where the term started, but my guess it refers to local trains designed to “accomodate” the smaller towns that weren’t stops for the railroad’s main passenger trains. It could also refer to trains running on a branch line to connect those smaller towns to a connection to trains on the mainline of the railroad.
If you look through any state’s historical index for that state’s railroad PUC/RR Commission/ DOT section on intra-state commerce regulation you will see plenty of dockets for small town / county/ industry demands for stops (or elimination of stops or relocation [rare]) for passenger service or freight agency locations. Same thing applies at the STB/ICC level, but those tend to be more freight service oriented.
In the early days of railroading many people had private cars. These were so prevalent that a whole train would be made up of private cars with no space for paying customers. As a business reason the railroads would haul the private cars free. The federal government stepped in and said that private car owners had to pay a fee equal to so many paying charges. Do not remember the magnitude of this fee.
Railroads had to get permission from the government to discontinue passenger service on a particular line. I remember Southern Pacific running a one coach train through Bakersfield before Staggers. The last SP train over this line was sold out and a couple additional coaches were added. Sad to see it go. Today you can ride Amtrak only to Bakersfield.
I’m not sure where but I read somewhere that the charge for hauling a private car on a passenger train was 21 first-class fares.
IIRC, Lucius Beebe’s Mansions on Rails stated 18 first-class fares was imposed by the ICC after the abuses of PV owner’s getting hauls for free. RR owned PV’s often got a free ride, but any non-railroader riding had to cough up a first class fare.
P.S. I may be wrong on “18 fares” - “21 fares” is a reasonable guess.
Before Amtrak’s ban on private cars, it was 88 coach class fares.
Has Amtrak ever had 88 seat coaches?