Duties
The general railroad law of 1873 specified a number of rights and responsibilities for the "Commissioner of Railroads", including but not limited to:
- Reporting: Every railroad company was required by law to furnish a report of its operations to the commissioner including disposition of capital stock, assets and liabilities, company officers, debt, the value and disposition of its physical plant (including roadbed, bridges, stations, rolling stock and track), the number of miles operated by its trains during the preceding year, earnings and expenses broken down by month and source, expenditures on improvements and investments, rates charged for passenger and freight traffic, accidents on its lines and operating agreements with other companies. In turn, the commissioner was required to publish these reports.
- Investigation: the commissioner was empowered by the act to inquire into the affairs of railroad companies independent of the annual reports, and permitted to use subpoenas to compel testimony from company officials.
- Inspection: the commissioner was empowered to inspect a company's physical plant, and to restrict the operation of passenger trains over sections of a line deemed unsafe. In 1886 and again in 1893, the commission closed the St. Joseph Valley Railway to passenger traffic because of the deterioration of the roadbed.
Read more about this topic: Michigan Railroad Commission
Famous quotes containing the word duties:
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—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)