Union Pac. R. Co. v. Public Service Commission
| Decision Date | 12 December 1942 |
| Docket Number | 6474 |
| Court | Utah Supreme Court |
| Parties | UNION PAC. R. CO. v. PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION et al |
Original certiorari proceeding by the Union Pacific Railroad Company to review a decision of George S. Ballif and others as members of and constituting the Public Service Commission of Utah, denying an application for authority to discontinue operation of motor passenger trains on certain branch lines of the plaintiff.
Order denying the application set aside.
George H. Smith, Robert B. Porter, and W. Hal Farr, all of Salt Lake City, for plaintiff.
Grover A. Giles, Atty. Gen. and A. U. Miner, Deputy Atty. Gen., for defendants.
This matter is before this Court on a writ of certiorari to review a decision of the Public Service Commission of Utah.
On August 22, 1941, plaintiff, a Utah corporation, filed with the Public Service Commission of Utah an application for authority to discontinue the operation of two motor passenger trains between Ogden, Utah, and Malad, Idaho, and two motor passenger trains between Cache Junction, Utah, and Preston Idaho. After due notice was published, hearings on this application were held. Because part of the service for which discontinuance was requested was in the State of Idaho, the Public Utilities Commission of Idaho instituted a proceeding on complaint to investigate this matter. The Public Service Commission of Utah and the Public Utilities Commission of Idaho arranged to hold joint hearings, one in Ogden, Utah, and the other in Preston, Idaho. It was agreed that the evidence to be adduced at both hearings was to be considered by each commission as being part of its own record in arriving at its decision.
Numerous protests were filed with the Commissions against the granting of the application for the discontinuance of the operation of these motor passenger trains by residents, municipal officers, and civic organizations of the communities which these trains served.
At the hearings the plaintiff introduced evidence that for a number of years plaintiff operated between Ogden, Utah, and Malad, Idaho, and Cache Junction, Utah, and Preston, Idaho, daily round trip passenger motor trains. These trains as incidental to the passenger service carried mail, express, milk, cream and newspapers. These were branch lines, the distance between Ogden and Malad being 73 miles, and that between Cache Junction and Preston 51 miles. For a number of years the average number of passengers carried on these lines was less than four persons per day. On some runs the crew which consisted of three persons outnumbered the passengers. The evidence also tended to show that the number of passengers using these trains decreased as time went on, in other words as was aptly stated by one of the witnesses for the plaintiff at the hearings, relative to passengers using the service:
"Their interest in riding that train has reached the vanishing point, * * *."
The cost of operating the Malad run in 1940 was $ 24,716.82 on which there was an approximate loss, taking into consideration passenger revenue only, of $ 23,340. The cost of operating the Preston run for the year 1940 was $ 16,349.91, and again taking into consideration only passenger revenue, the loss which the railroad suffered was approximately $ 15,940. However, the railroad company received additional revenue by the incidental carrying of mail, express, milk, cream and newspapers on these trains. The mail represented the largest item in this additional revenue, in the year 1940 amounting to $ 5,263.20 on the Cache Junction-Preston branch and $ 6,109.11 on the Ogden-Malad branch. From these figures it can be seen that the revenue obtained by the railroad from the carrying of express, milk, cream and newspapers was relatively...
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