Citations
- 200 S.W.2d 626
Full opinion text
SIMPSON, Justice.
The Texas and New Orleans Railroad Company sued the Railroad Commission of Texas and its members in a Travis County district court to set aside a Commission order denying the company’s application for leave to discontinue passenger train service on its branch line between Wharton and Palacios. The district court set the order aside and enjoined the Commission from requiring passenger train service on this line so long as either (1) the operation is not necessary in the rendition of adequate service to the public, or (2) the passenger traffic offered and reasonably to be expected does not and will not pay the cost of the service plus a reasonable return upon the property employed in its rendition. Upon an appeal from that judgment, the Court of Civil Appeals construed Article 6479, Revised Statutes, as amended, Vernon’s Ann.Civ.St. art. 6479, to mean that the Railroad Commission was without power to allow a discontinuance of passenger train service as sought by the railroad company, the court being of the opinion that the Commission “did not have the authority to authorize complete abandonment thereof.” 197 S.W.2d 176, 180.
Before 1927, enactments which had been in effect since 1891 required substantially that the Railroad Commission see to it that every railroad should run at least one train a day, Sundays excepted, upon which passengers should be transported, and, further, that “the commission shall have no power to relax this provision.” Acts 1891, ch. 51, p. 55; Art. 4580, R.S. 1895; Acts 1903, ch. 117, p. 183; Art. 6676, R.S. 1911; Acts 1925, ch. 154, p. 365; Art. 6479, R.S. 1925. These and other statutes (notably Arts. 6349, 6357 and 6358, R.S. 1925) had been construed to mean that the Commission had no power to authorize the complete abandonment of a railroad or of train operations over it once the railroad had been located and established. State v. Sugarland Ry. Co., Tex.Civ.App., 163 S.W. 1047, error refused. In 1927, however, the legislative policy by which the Railroad Commission had been so strictly enjoined to require a minimum of passenger train service was changed so that the Commission was authorized to “relax” these requirements as to certain short lines whose gross annual passenger revenues were less than $3600 (Acts 1927, ch. 198, p. 283). A still more sweeping change in legislative policy occurred in 1933 when the act under consideration was amended to include the following provisions:
“It shall be the duty of the Commission to see that upon each railroad in this State carrying passengers for hire there shall be run at least one train each day, Sundays excepted, upon which passengers shall be hauled; provided, however, the Commission may, in its discretion, upon application filed and after notice and hearing, relax such requirement as to any railroad, or part, portion or branch thereof, when, in its opinion, public convenience permits of such relaxation, and shall relax sttch requirement when it appears upon such hearing that the running of one train each day, Sundays excepted, is not necessary in the rendition of adequate service to the public, or that on any railroad, or part, or portion or branch thereof, passenger service as frequent as one Pram each day, Sundays excepted, with the passenger traffic offered and reasonably to be expected, does not