STATIONS.

Since rates are made to and from stations (agency and nonagency) and not
from individual elevators, warehouses, or ranches, and as it is the invari-
able practice where an industry is located near to a station to accord such
industry the rates and service of the near-by station, rates assessed from
Westby Station, Mont., on rye from Westby Township, N. Dak., at which
complainant's elevator was located, were not unreasonable, although higher
than the rate from Alkabo, N. Dak., the next distant station in the same
rate group as Westby Township. Farmers' G. & T. Co. v. Minneapolis,
St. P. & S. S. M. Ry. Co., 5 (7).

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. See LIMITATION OF ACTION.

STIPULATION.

By a stipulation of plaintiff and defendant, in the court action for the collec-
tion of undercharges, it was agreed that suit should be held suspended
pending the commission's decision. Federated Metals Corp. v. Pennsyl-
vania R. Co., 197.

STORAGE.

Temporary storage at the port, permitted by tariff authority, of shipments
destined to a point within the same State, did not divest the traffic from
India of its foreign character acquired at the time it began its journey from
the foreign port or prevent its being considered through traffic.
v. Houston & Texas Central R. Co., 164 (165).

Dennery

The practice of according storage space for fertilizer moving in interstate or
foreign commerce, at rates other than those named in published tariffs,
was in violation of section 6 of the act, which provides that storage and all
other charges which determine any part of the aggregate charges on inter-
state or foreign commerce shall be made the subject of tariff publication.
Where shippers were offered the alternative of storage at the tariff rates
or upon terms agreed to under leases, the carriers should have arranged
at once either to publish the entire provisions under which storage, as an
incident of interstate or foreign commerce, would be performed or else
have discontinued the alternative leasing practice. Wharfage Charges at
Atlantic and Gulf Ports, 663 (691).

STORE-DOOR DELIVERY.

Proposed schedules providing for store-door delivery and collection service
at Bennettsville, S. C., found justified in the absence of a showing that
such service would be unjustly discriminatory or unduly prejudicial to
other points on carrier's line or the lines of competing carriers. Rules
Covering Freight at Bennettsville, S. C., 277.

While the proposed absorption of drayage charges in 128 I. C. C. 405 was
disapproved because approval thereof would not have been consistent
with section 15 (a) of the act, that finding was not determinative of the
establishment of the proposed store-door delivery in the absence of evidence
indicating the existence of subnormal rates or that the proposed schedules
would furnish a dangerous precedent or promote destructive competition.
Id. (278).

A common carrier may not unduly prefer one community or disadvantage
another, and if it voluntarily chooses to meet competition at one point in
respect to absorption of drayage, its obligations to other communities on
its line is clear under past decisions of the commission. Id. (278).
The commission has never condemned the practice of store-door delivery
and absorption of drayage as such, but its decision in each case is necessarily
based on the particluar facts considered therein. Id. (278).

STORE-DOOR DELIVERY-Continued.

The establishment of store-door delivery service at one point on carrier's
line and not at intermediate points does not result in violations of the long-
and-short-haul provision of section 4 of the act. Id. (279).

SUCCESSOR IN INTEREST.

As the Roach Creek Coal Mines sold its rights, interests, and mining property
to the Wakenva Coal Company before the situations to which the issues
related arose, it had no interest in the proceeding, the real complainant
being the latter company. Roach Creek Coal Mines v. Ann Arbor R. Co.,

103.

Rates on cyanamid found unreasonable as compared with lower rates on other
nitrogenous compounds. Reparation awarded to successor in interest and
reasonable rates prescribed for the future. Pioneer Compost Co. v. South-
ern Pac. Co., 489 (491–492).

SWITCHING.

In General: The fact that a terminal is operated on a cost-of-service basis
indicates that its switching charge is not a maximum reasonable charge.
Absorption of Switching Charges, 129 (132).

Absorption of Charges:

Proposed reduction in the absorption of switching charges of the Alton &
Southern, at East St. Louis, Ill., which would have the effect of pro-
hibiting that carrier from participating in any intermediate switching
of traffic from trunk lines moving under combination rates, found
not justified. Absorption of Switching Charges, 129.

The rule that the commission can not require one carrier to absorb switch-
ing charges of another, in the absence of unjust discrimination or
undue prejudice, had no application in a situation where respondent
was one of the proprietary lines that approved a reduction in a switch-
ing charge of a terminal company and then sought to use that reduc-
tion as a basis for refusing to absorb more than a certain amount of the
charge of a carrier which competed with the terminal, without offering
any evidence regarding the reasonableness of the terminal's switching
charge. Id. (132).

The commission has frequently found that so far as the shipping public
is concerned the effect of a switching absorption is to establish a joint
rate. Therefore, the burden of justifying an increase resulting from
proposed changes in the absorption of switching charges rested on the
respondent, and that burden was not sustained. Id. (132).
Industrial: The inadequacy of track facilities, which in 142 I. C. C. 579
was found to justify the Tennessee Railroad in refusing to place empty
cars at complainant's mine and to perform the transportation service
therefrom to the junction without charge having been removed, and
complainant's competitors having been accorded a greater aggregate
service, the failure to perform such service or to seek authority to pay an
allowance in lieu thereof was unreasonable and unduly prejudicial. Per-
formance of such service or payment of an allowance in lieu thereof required
and reasonable allowance per loaded car prescribed for the future, should
defendant elect to permit the complainant to perform the service. Repa-
ration awarded. Roach Creek Coal Mines v. Ann Arbor R. Co., 103.
157 I. C. C.

SWITCHING CHARGES.
Rates to and from points of unloading and loading at the complainant's
plant at Mckees Rocks and Allegheny, Pa., during the period of Federal
control, which consisted of the rate to Pittsburgh and the unabsorbed
switching charges beyond, found not unreasonable in view of the slight
increase over the Pittsburgh rate and the lack of evidence that the latter
was the proper measure of maximum reasonableness to that point. Find-
ings in 93 I. C. C. 224, and 109 I. C. C. 755 affirmed. Pressed Steel Car
Co. v. Director General, 623.

SWITCHING DISTRICT.

While points on team tracks within switching limits have been considered
intermediate points in connection with traffic to destinations beyond,
even though shipments may not have passed through such points, this
principle could not be applied to points within the corporate but not the
switching limits of a municipality, where such points were located on
branch lines and line-haul rates applied between them and other points,
and it would have been impossible to move traffic through them except
over unnatural routes involving a back haul. Valentine & Co. v. Lehigh
Valley R. Co., 781 (782-783).

Since Claremont Terminal was within the corporate but not the switching
limits of Jersey City, N. J., and it would have been physically impossible
to have moved traffic via Claremont Terminal from Newark, N. J., to
Brooklyn, N. Y., except over an unnatural route and with a retracing
movement, the rate from Newark, which was subject to rule 77 of Tariff
Circualr 18-A, did not apply on traffic from Claremont Terminal, not-
withstanding the fact that points within the lighterage limits of New
York Harbor have been considered as a unit within the meaning of the
fourth section. Id. (782-783).

SYSTEM. See also COMMON CONTROL, MANAGEMENT, OR ARRANGEMENT.
The Southern Pacific and the Visalia Electric Railroad constitute one line

for rate-making purposes. Pioneer Compost Co. v. Southern Pac. Co.,
489 (490).

TARIFF CIRCULAR 18-A. See ADMINISTRATIVE RULINGS (TARIFF CIRCULAR
18-A).

TARIFF CIRCULAR 20. See ADMINISTRATIVE RULINGS (TARIFF CIRcular 20).
TARIFF INTERPRETATION.

In General:

Carriers' tariffs must be construed strictly according to their language
and the intention of the framers is not controlling, but where a doubt
as to the meaning of a tariff must be resolved in favor of the shipper
and against the carrier which compiled it, the doubt must be a reason-
able one without a strained and unnatural construction of that tariff.
Wolcott & Lincoln v. Chicago & Alton R. Co., 203 (204).
Where doubt as to a provision in a tariff is a reasonable one all the per-
tinent provisions must be considered together, and if they express the
intention of the framers, that intention must be given effect. Id. (204).
It is well settled that where a tariff is silent as to routing the rates apply
over all routes of carriers parties to the tariff. Amber Furniture
Co. v. Cleveland, C., C. & St. L. Ry. Co., 311 (314).
Despite repeated findings to the effect that tariff ambiguities must be
resolved against the framer of the tariff, this principle may not be
successfully invoked where, in a given issue, there is a total absence of
rates. Buckeye Cotton Oil Co. v. Alton & Southern Ry. Co., 657
(658).

TARIFF INTERPRETATION-Continued.

In General-Continued.

Certain exceptions to the governing classification, providing that class
rates would not apply on a certain commodity, governed only those
tariffs which referred to them, and did not prohibit the application of
class rates named in other tariffs. Id. (659).

Doubt as to the meaning of a tariff must be a reasonable one, and neither
shippers nor carriers will be permitted to urge for their own purposes
a strained and unnatural construction. Hertz Leather Co. v. Balti-
more & O. R. Co., 702 (706).

The fact that the proportional rates claimed to be applicable were not
published in the tariff, nor was reference made in that tariff to other
tariffs, in which the rates were published as required by rule (c) of
Tariff Circular 18-A, would tend to indicate that the rates sought were
not applicable, for while the applicability of tariffs or rates does not,
as a rule, depend on compliance with the commission's tariff-pub-
lishing requirements, it is a matter which should be given consider-
ation in determining the intention as between two tariffs contem-
poraneously published by the same publishing agent over a long term
of years, the carriers being presumed to comply with the commission's
regulations. Id. (707).

Specific Tariffs:

* * *

Combination rate on oil-well machinery and equipment from Beattyville,
Ky., to Akron, Ohio, found inapplicable, as southern classification
provided a sixth-class and official classification a fifth-class rate,
respectively, on "Machinery and Machines:
Well Boring
or Well Drilling * * * " By an exception to southern classifi-
cation a class L rate applied on Machinery and Machines" rated
sixth class in southern classification, and the applicable rate was this
class L rate to Cincinnati, Ohio, and the fifth-class rate beyond.
Reparation awarded. Star Drilling Machine Co. v. Louisville &
N. R. Co., 169.

66

Under section 1 of the governing tariff the proportional rate on corn from
Kansas City, Mo., to Chicago, Ill., applied on shipments originating
at unnamed points in Kansas. Section 2 of the same tariff provided
lower rates from and to these points from specifically named points
of origin in Oklahoma. Under the intermediate rule, as amended, in
connection with section 2 rates, the complainant contended that the
Kansas points, not listed, being directly intermediate to two points
on the same railroad that are listed, took the basis of rates applying
from the next more distant points in Oklahoma. However, consider-
ing the rule and the tariff as a whole, the extremes comprehended by
the term "intermediate" were points in Oklahoma and the phrase
"intermediate to two points on the same railroad that are listed"
referred only to unnamed points between two points in that State on
lines of the carriers involved. Therefore, the rule was not applicable
from points in Kansas on lines of those carriers. Rate assessed found
applicable. Wolcott & Lincoln v. Chicago & Alton R. Co., 203.

157 I. C. C.

TARIFF INTERPRETATION-Continued.

Specific Tariffs-Continued.

Following 115 I. C. C. 439, and other cases, the sixth-class rate from
Jacksonville to Avon Park, Fla., being one factor of a combination
rate from West Allis, Wis., on one travelling crane and parts listed
under the general heading cranes or derricks" in southern classifi-
cation, was found inapplicable and the class N rating provided in the
exceptions thereto applicable to "Machinery and machines rated
sixth class under caption, 'Machinery and Machines' in southern
classification," was found applicable. Reparation awarded. Milwau-
kee Elec. Crane & Mfg. Corp. v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 417.
Title-page of tariff showed proportional rates in one item, which was
separated by a space and a short-ruled line from the succeeding para-
graph naming "commodity rates" from Louisville, Ky., the origin
point of the shipments; but since the application notes under the item
indicated that the latter rates applied only on crude linseed oil refined
at Louisville when originating beyond, such rates were not local but
proportional, and the sixth-class rates assessed to Chicago were
applicable. National Cottonseed Products Corp. v. Chicago, I. & L.
Ry. Co., 449.

As the particular use to which the complainant put an article could not
control, the burden of proof in establishing that a commodity rate
applicable to unidentified articles generally denominated "hoisting
machinery" should take precedence over the corresponding class rate
on an article specifically known and classified as a “power shovel"
was not sustained, as the evidence indicated that the primary function
of power shovels was excavating rather than hoisting. Babcock,
Boomer & Babcock v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co., 469.
Commodity rate charged on cottonseed-hull shavings from Little Rock,
Ark., to Melrose Park, Ill., found inapplicable during the period in
which rates on cottonseed hulls were erroneously omitted from a tariff
which provided a method of basing cottonseed-hull shavings rates upon
the cottonseed-hull rates. In the absence of cross references, there
was no authority for using two tariffs in conjunction to determine the
rate on the shavings, and the commission was unable to determine
from the record the legally applicable rate. Buckeye Cotton Oil Co.
v. Alton & Southern R. Co., 657.
Complainant's construction of tariffs whereby rates claimed to be appli-
cable under an intermediate clause from Kansas City, Kans.-Mo.,
and St. Joseph, Mo., to destinations east of the Mississippi River,
composed of the factor to westbank points plus proportional rates
beyond, were higher than the through combination rates based on east-
bank points, from origins to which Kansas City and St. Joseph were
claimed to be intermediate, resulted in an absurd interpretation and
in violations of the long-and-short haul clause which it is the purpose
of the intermediate rule to avoid. Hertz Leather Co. v. Baltimore &
O. R. Co., 702 (707).

TARIFFS.

Generally speaking, distance tariffs are published for application in connec-
tion with distance rates which refer thereto for table of distances. Herta
Leather Co. v. Baltimore & O. R Co., 702 (709).