Petition of Town of Grenville.Petition of Colo. & S. Ry. Co.

• Citation: 46 N.M. 3,119 P.2d 632
• Decision Date: 21 November 1941
• Docket Number: No. 4627.,4627.
• Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico
• Parties: Petition of TOWN OF GRENVILLE.Petition of COLORADO & S. RY. CO.

46 N.M. 3

119 P.2d 632

Petition of TOWN OF GRENVILLE.Petition of COLORADO & S. RY. CO.

No. 4627.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Nov. 21, 1941.

Removal from State Corporation Commission.

In the matter of the petition of the Citizens of Grenville requesting the State Corporation Commission to require the Colorado & Southern Railway Company to maintain and provide a station agent at Grenville, wherein the Colorado & Southern Railway Company petitioned the commission for an order removing the case to the Supreme Court and such order was made and case was removed to the Supreme Court.

Enforcement of order of the State Corporation Commission denied.

In determining whether railroad could discontinue maintenance of a station agent, it is just that public should bear some inconvenience rather than to impose upon railroad unnecessary expenses. Const. art. 11, § 7.

E. R. Wright, of Santa Fe, O. P. Easterwood, of Clayton, and J. C. Street and J. L. Rice, both of Denver, Colo., for petitioner.

Bate Bond, of Clayton, for claimants.

BRICE, Chief Justice.

This proceeding presents the question, whether the Colorado and Southern Railway Company should continue to maintain a station agent at Grenville, a small community in Union County, New Mexico. The Railway gave local notice that the agent would be discontinued, and on November 15, 1940, Mr. W. J. Sink and others procured an order from the District Court temporarily enjoining the Company from removing the agent. Shortly thereafter Sabino Marquez et al. presented a petition to the State Corporation Commission to require the Company to continue the agency. The petition was heard by the Commission at Clayton, December 11, 1940; and on February 20, 1941 it made an order that the Railway continue to provide and maintain a station agent at Grenville until the further order of the Commission. March 10, 1941 the Colorado and Southern petitioned the Commission for an order removing the case to this Court, under Section 7 of Article XI of the State Constitution. Such order was made and, with the record, has been filed in this Court.

Section 7 of Article XI of the New Mexico Constitution provides, among other things, that the State Corporation Commission “shall have power and be charged with the duty *** to require railway companies to provide and maintain adequate depots, stock-pens, station buildings, agents and facilities for the accommodation of passengers and for receiving and delivering freight and express.”

Also:

“*** Any company, corporation or common carrier which does not comply with the order of the commission within the time limited therefor, may file with the commission a petition to remove such cause to the supreme court, and in the event of such removal by the company, corporation or common carrier, or other party to such hearing, the supreme court may, upon application in its discretion, or of its own motion, require or authorize additional evidence to be taken in such cause. ***

“In addition to the other powers vested in the supreme court by this constitution and the laws of the state, the said court shall have the power and it shall be its duty to decide such cases on their merits, and carry into effect its judgments, orders and decrees made in such cases, by fine, forfeiture, mandamus, injunction and contempt or other appropriate proceedings.”

The Colorado & Southern Railway Company will be designated the railway company and the citizens of Grenville will be designated petitioners.

The railway company operates a railroad that crosses the northeasterly part of the state of New Mexico. There are fourteen stations in the state, five of which are maintained with agents. The town of Grenville is 8 7/10 miles north of Mt. Dora and 19 3/10 miles south of Des Moines, which are the nearest stations having agents. Much of the transportation business of the community is done by truck and bus. The town is connected with paved roads or highways extending into New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado. There are about six or seven hundred people who are served by the post office in Grenville, approximately 190 of whom live in that town. There are two rural routes out of Grenville with 168 box owners, which serve approximately five or six hundred people, a large majority of whom trade in Grenville. The Grenville school district has an area of 300 square miles, 160 pupils attend its schools. Presumably they are transported to school by busses.

There are in Grenville two general stores, a post office, lumber yard, drug store and filling stations. The greater part of the transportation business of the community is done by truck. The principal merchant testified that 75% of the merchandise bought by him was brought to Grenville by truck; that he was in the coal business and had fifty or sixty customers, including the public schools, and that all of the coal bought by him was brought from Raton in trucks. From the small amount of local freight shipped in it would appear that even more than 75% of the commodities shipped in and out of this town, except those in carload lots, are transported by trucks.

The railway Company has tabulated the income derived from the operation of this station since 1935.

The petitioners suggest, and we think correctly, that the year 1940 should be taken as a basis for calculating the income from and expense of running this station. The income for 1939 was considerably in excess of that for 1940, but this is accounted for by the fact that a large amount of material for destroying an infestation of grasshoppers was shipped into this station for use in that community. We use the first ten months of 1940 as a basis because they are the most recent figures obtainable and should show substantially the condition of traffic in and out of Grenville. There was shipped from Grenville for the year of 1940 an average of 8.6 car loads per month, or 103.6 car loads per annum. There was received at Grenville during the first ten months of 1940, from outside, 37 car loads of freight, or an average of 3.7 car loads per month, or 44.4 per annum. The outgoing car load traffic in 1940 was all livestock, consisting of 71 cars of cattle, 8 of horses, 6 of sheep and 1 of hogs. All of these, with the exception of 13 cars, were shipped during the months of August, September and October. We note from the evidence as to previous years that from 60 to 80 percent of carload traffic in each year was in the months of September, October and November. This perhaps should be taken into consideration in determining the annual outgoing carload shipments for 1940. On this basis the annual shipments would be about 107 cars.

Local freight shipped into Grenville in less than carload lots has decreased from 219 tons in 1928 to 14.2 tons in 1940 (12 tons for the first 10 months). The local freight shipped out of Grenville has decreased from 28 tons in 1930 to 1.2 tons in 1940 (one ton the first ten months.) The people of that community use trucks instead of rail transportation, apparently, whenever practical.

From tabulations in evidence we deduce the following as a fair statement of the station's business in 1940:

The revenue from outgoing traffic for the first ten months of 1940 was as follows:

2686 cans of cream $ 566.03 75 Railway tickets 98.83 12 Tons of local freight 209.38 86 Carloads of live stock 2413.13 $3287.37 Total receipts for incoming freight for ten months of 1940 1427.37 Gross income from Grenville station for ten months of 1940 $4714.74

Assuming the months of November and December 1940 would average with the year, the gross 1940 income would be $5658.09, or an average of $471.51 per month.

The expense of operating the Grenville station for eleven months of 1940 was $2003.80, consisting of the following items:

Salary of agent $1859.81 Social security tax 111.59 Heating...