[256]. I. C. C. Rep. 1904, p. 21; 10 I. C. C. Decis. 385, Nov. 1904. The Commission held that “the divisions are grossly excessive for the services rendered and afford unlawful preference for the U. S. Steel Corporation, which owns the Ill. Steel Co.”
[257]. 10 I. C. C. Decis., March 25, 1905, pp. 661, 667–669 et seq.
[258]. Ibid., p. 661.
[259]. I. C. C. Decis., 664, March 12, 1904.
[260]. Ibid., 707, Feb. 7, 1905; also p. 681, March 19, 1904.
[261]. The oil cars, dressed-meat cars, etc., of course are in use the year round, and even fruit and vegetables need refrigerator cars in the winter to keep them from freezing as well as in summer to keep them from spoiling. (Sen. Com., 1905, p. 370.)
[262]. The present system, however, does not always give good service. In April and May, 1905, for instance, hundreds and hundreds of cars of strawberries rotted at the stations in North Carolina for want of cars. The Armour Car-Line could not, or at least did not supply the needed cars, and as they have an exclusive contract with the Atlantic Coast Line no other cars are in the field. At one station only 4 cars were furnished in two days and 125 carloads of berries were left on the platform and the ground to spoil. The loss this season to the truck growers of this one section from insufficient car service is estimated at $600,000. (Sen. Com., 1905, pp. 2596, 2619.)
[263]. Some railroads have refrigerator lines of their own; the Pennsylvania, for example, and the Vanderbilts, the Goulds, the Santa Fe, the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, etc., but they carry the private refrigerators also. Packers and other shippers owning cars insist on sending their goods in their own cars, and making the roads pay mileage. If the road refuses, the freight goes by some other line. “They compel us to take it in their cars and pay them for the use of them while our own cars stand on the side track, or else some other road gets the business.” (Testimony of James J. Hill, Sen. Com., 1905, pp. 1504–1505.)
[264]. See above, pp. 57, 58.
[265]. This mileage rebate system began long ago. Way back in the seventies the Erie and other roads allowed the Standard Oil Company to put tank cars on their tracks and paid it a mileage sufficient to pay back the values of the cars in less than 3 years.