93 Opinion of the Court. such services would impose an undue burden on interstate commerce. Colorado v. United States, 271 U. S. 153. However, the Commission totally lacked power to discontinue particular trains or services while leaving the remaining services in operation. It was precisely this gap which § 13a (2) was intended to fill. New Jersey v. New York, S. & W. R. Co., 372 U. S. 1, 5-6. As both the House and Senate Committee Reports on the legislation which became § 13a (2) make clear, Congress was primarily concerned with the problems posed by passenger services for which significant public demand no longer existed and which were consistently deficit-producing, thus forcing the carriers to subsidize their operation out of freight profits. Far from permitting the carrier's need for discontinuance of passenger services to be balanced against profits from other operations conducted 6 “A major cause of the worsening railroad situation is the unsatisfactory passenger situation. Not only is the passenger end of the business not making money-it is losing a substantial portion of that produced by freight operations. "It is obvious that in very great measure these passenger losses are attributable to commuter service. It is unreasonable to expect that such service should continue to be subsidized by the freight shippers throughout the country. "There are substantial losses, however, occurring in passenger service beyond those attributable solely to commuter service. Where this passenger service. . . cannot be made to pay its own way because of lack of patronage at reasonable rates, abandonment seems called for." H. R. Rep. No. 1922, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 11-12. "A most serious problem for the railroads is the difficulty and delay they often encounter when they seek to discontinue or change the operation of services or facilities that no longer pay their way and for which there is no longer sufficient public need to justify the heavy financial losses entailed. The subcommittee believes that the maintenance and operation of such outmoded services and facilities constitutes a heavy burden on interstate commerce." S. Rep. No. 1647, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 21. 720-509 O-65-11 Opinion of the Court. 376 U.S. 8 along the same line, the bill as originally reported by the Senate Committee would have required the Commission to permit discontinuance, even if there was great public need for the service, so long as the continued operation of a particular service would result in a net loss to the carrier. Senator Javits unsuccessfully attempted to amend the bill on the floor of the Senate to delete the net loss standard and to substitute a requirement that the Commission balance the public need for the service against the deficit resulting from it. Such an amendment, proposed by Chairman Harris of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, was adopted by the House, and accepted by the Senate in conference. The deletion of the net loss standard, however, by no means implied that freight profits along a given line could be offset against deficits incurred by passenger services for purposes of determining whether the latter constituted an undue burden on interstate operations or commerce. As Congressman Harris made clear after his amendment had been accepted, the situation "we are trying to get at" is that in which "the [freight] shippers of this country are making up a deficit every year . . . in losses in passenger service." 10 The bill as originally reported by the Senate Committee would have applied the net loss standard to both interstate and intrastate operations, the Committee Report having concluded that state regulatory bodies required 7 S. 3778, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 6. See also the remarks of Senator Smathers, Chairman of the Surface Transportation Subcommittee, who made it clear that the net loss standard did not refer to all operations on a line or all operations within a State but rather to "the loss from the particular operation the railroad is rendering." 104 Cong. Rec. 10849. See 104 Cong. Rec. 10846-10849. See also pp. 10838-10839. 9104 Cong. Rec. 12547-12548. 10 104 Cong. Rec. 12551. 93 Opinion of the Court. 11 "the maintenance of uneconomic and unnecessary services and facilities." "1 The bill was amended on the Senate floor to limit the Commission's discontinuance authority to interstate trains,12 and the House version of the bill was similarly limited.13 In conference, however, the Commission's authority over intrastate trains was restored and, except for differences in the procedures prerequisite to a hearing in the case of a wholly intrastate train," the Commission was required to apply the same standard to interstate and intrastate operations in determining whether discontinuance of a train or service is justified.15 Contrary to the suggestion of the District Court that its interpretation of § 13a (2) must be accepted to avoid "requir[ing] the intrastate operations to bear more than their share," 210 F. Supp., at 680, the statutory scheme which Congress has embodied in § 13a thus prescribes precisely the same substantive standard to govern discontinuance of either interstate or intrastate operations.' 16 11 S. Rep. No. 1647, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 22. 12 104 Cong. Rec. 10862, 10864. 13 H. R. 12832, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., 10. 14 Under § 13a (2), which applies solely to intrastate trains, the Commission may not authorize discontinuance until after the appropriate state regulatory agency has been given an opportunity to act and has failed or refused to authorize discontinuance. See New Jersey v. New York, S. & W. R. Co., 372 U. S. 1, 4. 15 See 49 U. S. C. § 13a (1), (2). 16 The fact that Congress intended the same substantive standards to be applied both to intrastate and interstate discontinuances wholly vitiates appellees' argument that the Commission is required to take into account, wherever presented, the profitability of intrastate operations as a whole or any segment thereof whenever an intrastate service is sought to be discontinued. Thus, consideration of the overall prosperity of the carrier is necessarily relevant to a determination of the degree to which a deficit resulting from a given service constitutes an undue burden on interstate commerce. But neither the Opinion of the Court. 376 U.S. All that need properly be considered under this standard, as both the language and history of § 13a (2) thus make abundantly clear, is what effect the discontinuance of the specific train or service in question will have upon the public convenience and necessity and upon interstate operations or commerce. As the Commission has correctly summed up the matter in another case: "The burden [upon the carrier's interstate operations or upon interstate commerce, as expressed in section 13a (2)] . . . is to be measured by the injurious effect that the continued operation of the train proposed for discontinuance would have upon interstate commerce. As is indicated by its legislative history, the purpose of section 13a (2) is to permit the discontinuance of the operation of services that 'no longer pay their way and for which there is no longer sufficient public need to justify the heavy financial losses involved.' (S. Rep. 1647, 85th Cong.). Nowhere in section 13a (2) or elsewhere in the law is there any requirement that the prosperity of the intrastate operations of the carrier as a whole, or any particular segment thereof, must be given effect in determining whether the operation of an individual intrastate train imposes an unjust and undue burden on interstate commerce. To hold otherwise would be contrary to the apparent intent of the Congress." Southern Pac. Co., Partial Discontinuance, 312 I. C. C. 631, 633–634 (1961). This Court has long recognized that the Commission may properly give varying weights to the overall pros profitability of such freight operations as are fortuitously conducted on the same line as a given passenger service nor the profitability of all operations within any given State bears any practical relationship either to the public's need for the service in question or to the burden which the deficit imposes on interstate commerce. 93 Opinion of the Court. perity of the carrier in differing situations. Thus, in Colorado v. United States, 271 U. S. 153, which also involved a situation in which the Commission was required to balance public convenience and necessity against undue burdens on interstate commerce, it was specifically noted that "In many cases, it is clear that the extent of the whole traffic, the degree of dependence of the communities directly affected upon the particular means of transportation, and other attendant conditions, are such that the carrier may not justly be required to continue to bear the financial loss necessarily entailed by operation. In some cases. . . the question is whether abandonment may justly be permitted, in view of the fact that it would subject the communities directly affected to serious injury while continued operation would impose a relatively light burden upon a prosperous carrier." 271 U. S., at 168-169. In cases falling within the latter category, such as those involving vital commuter services in large metropolitan areas where the demands of public convenience and necessity are large, it is of course obvious that the Commission would err if it did not give great weight to the ability of the carrier to absorb even large deficits resulting from such services. But where, as here, the Commission's findings make clear that the demands of public convenience and necessity are slight and that the situation is, therefore, one falling within the first category delineated in Colorado, it is equally proper for the Commission, in determining the existence of the burden on interstate commerce, to give little weight to the factor of the carrier's overall prosperity. Whatever room there may be for differing views as to the wisdom of the policy reflected in § 13a (2), it is the duty of the Commission to effectuate the statutory scheme. We cannot agree with the District Court that the Commission departed in any respect from that duty |