OPERATING INCOME OF RAILWAYS.

The following table gives a statistical review of railway operations since 1891. Notwithstanding the unreliability of book values as a statement of investment, especially in the earlier years, and the changes in accounting requirements which affect the comparability of statistics, such a statement has value in showing the general trend of railway development in the United States:

1906. 1907..

1908 3.

1909 3.

1910 3.

1911 3.

1912 3.

19137.

1914 7

1915 3.

1916 3. 1917 9.

4 The averages shown for 1908 to 1912 are not fully comparable with those for previous years, chiefly for the reason that the figures upon which they are based do not include
returns for switching and terminal companies.
5 Represent returns for Class I and Class II roads and their nonoperating subsidiaries.

6 Represent returns for Class I and Class II roads and their nonoperating subsidiaries. Figures are taken from the 1913 statistical report.

7 Returns for operations, columns (b) to (j), inclusive, are based on figures which exclude returns for so-called small roads and switching and terminal companies.
8 Data for Class I and Class II carriers.

9 Figures in columns (b) to (g), inclusive, and (i) are from monthly reports of revenues and expenses of Class I roads, excluding switching and terminal companies. 10 Based on estimated figures.

BUREAU OF SAFETY.

The work of the bureau of safety has been substantially similar in character to the work of that bureau in previous years. A detailed report of its work is published separately.

SAFETY APPLIANCE ACTS.

During the calendar year ended December 31, 1916, 136 employees were killed and 2,440 injured in coupling and uncoupling cars; casualties resulting from employees coming in contact with overhead and side obstructions and from falling from and getting on and off cars occasioned 564 deaths and 15,937 injuries. This represents an increase of 13 in the number killed and 246 in the number injured in the former class of accidents, and 59 in the number killed and 2,126 in the number injured in the latter class of accidents, as compared with the fiscal year ended June 30, 1916.

During that fiscal year, 187 cases, involving an aggregate of 542 violations of the law, were transmitted to the several United States district attorneys for prosecution. Cases comprising 127 counts were tried, of which 88 counts were decided in favor of and 37 counts adversely to the Government; 2 counts are still pending decision. Cases involving 478 counts were confessed, and 10 counts were dismissed. In the United States Circuit Courts of Appeal 7 cases, involving 50 counts, were argued; 4 cases involving 49 counts have been decided in favor of the Government, and 3 cases involving 11 counts in favor of the carriers; 8 cases involving 74 counts are pending in those courts.

As the period within which the carriers were required to equip their freight cars to comply with the standards fixed by the Commission's order of March 13, 1911, would expire on July 1, 1917, the Commission having extended its order of March 13, 1911, on November 2, 1915, upon application of the carriers a hearing was held on March 1, 1917, for the purpose of permitting all parties interested to show cause why a further extension of time should or should not be granted within which all carriers might comply with the order.

At this hearing it was shown that on January 1, 1917, there were 296,033 cars which did not fully conform to the prescribed standards respecting uniformity in location of the appliances required by the law. It was also shown that practical difficulties confronted the carriers which would prevent them from complying with the standardization of the appliances within the prescribed time allowed by the former extension order. Among these difficulties were: Car shortage, scarcity of labor, inability to obtain new equipment, and congested traffic conditions.

After a full consideration of the facts presented at this hearing, the Commission, on April 12, 1917, entered an order further extending the time to comply with paragraphs b, c, e, and ƒ of its original order for a period of eight months from July 1, 1917.

JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION OF THE SAFETY APPLIANCE ACTS.

The first case involving the Commission's order fixing certain standards was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in Illinois Central Railroad v. Williams, 242 U. S., 462. The court held that the requirements of section 2 of the act of April 14, 1910, have been in mandatory force since July 1, 1911, and were not suspended by the order of the Commission entered under the authority conferred by section 3, extending the time within which certain classes of cars are to be brought into compliance with the uniform standards as to location, dimension, and manner of application. The third section was interpreted

to require that the safety appliances "provided for by section 2 of this act" shall ultimately conform to a standard to be prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, that is, that they shall be standardized, shall be of uniform size and character, and, so far as ladders and handholds are concerned, shall be placed as nearly as possible at a corresponding place on every car, so that employees who work always in haste, and often in darkness and storm, may not be betrayed, to their injury or death, when they instinctively reach for the only protection which can avail in their dangerous service. It is for such emergencies that these safety appliances are provided-for service in those instant decisions upon which the safety of life or limb of a man so often depends in this perilous employment-and therefore this law requires that ultimately the location of these ladders and handholds shall be absolutely fixed so that the employees will know certainly that night or day he will find them in like place and of like size and usefulness on all cars, from whatever line of railway or section of the country they may come.

* * *

This reading of the two sections makes them stand together as an expression of a consistent congressional purpose "to promote the safety of employees and travelers on railroads" on and after July 1, 1911, by requiring that the safety appliances described in section 2 of the act shall be secure and efficient from that date, and by requiring, as section 3 provides, that these appliances shall be brought as speedily as may be to a uniform standard of location, size, and usefulness, to be prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

In St. Joseph & Grand Island Railway v. Moore, 243 U. S., 311, involving a claim of the carrier of a right to substitute for handholds any iron rod or iron device securely fastened upon the end of the tender, the Supreme Court held it inadmissible to allow "such an important statutory requirement to be satisfied by equivalents or by anything less than literal compliance with what it prescribes."

Other cases in which the Supreme Court has given interpretation to the safety appliance laws during the year are: Atlantic City R. R. v. Parker, 242 U. S., 57; Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Layton, 243 U. S., 617; Minn. & St. L. R. Co. v. Gotschall, 244 U. S., 66.