Railroads: Finance and Organization |
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actual amount assets Atchison Baltimore & Ohio bond issues bondholders borrowing Boston & Maine capital stock carriers cash cent Chicago coal collateral trust bonds common stock connection consolidation construction company convertible bonds corporation cost course courts debt depreciation discount dividends E. H. Harriman earning power economic entire Erie exchange expenses fact Federal financing fixed charges foreclosure Frisco funds Harriman Haven holders I. C. C. Rep income increased indebtedness infra interest Interstate Commerce Commission investment investors Lehigh Valley market price Massachusetts ment mile of line mortgage Northern Pacific operation outstanding over-capitalization panic par value Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Railroad physical valuation practice preferred shares preferred stock profits purchase Railroad Company Railway Age Reading Company reason receivership reorganization result road Rock Island share capital shareholders Southern speculative stock-watering stockholders stocks and bonds supra Texas tion traffic Union Pacific Western York Central
Popular passages
Page 312 - This power to regulate is not a power to destroy, and limitation is not the equivalent of confiscation. Under pretense of regulating fares and freights, the state cannot require a railroad corporation to carry persons or property without reward ; neither can it do that which in law amounts to a taking of private property for public use without just compensation, or without due process of law.
Page 315 - It is unnecessary to decide, and we do not wish to be understood as laying down as an absolute rule, that in every case a failure to produce some profit to those who have invested their money in the building of a road is conclusive that the tariff is unjust and unreasonable.
Page 321 - It is clear that in ascertaining the present value we are not limited to the consideration of the amount of the actual investment. If that has been reckless or improvident, losses may be sustained which the community does not underwrite. As the company may not be protected in its actual investment, if the value of its property be plainly less, so the making of a just return for the use of the property involves the recognition of its fair value if it be more than its cost.
Page 316 - And, in order to ascertain that value, the original cost of construction, the amount expended in permanent improvements, the amount and market value of Its bonds and stock, the present as compared with the original cost of construction, the probable earning capacity of the property under particular rates prescribed by statute, and the sum required to meet operating expenses, are all matters for consideration...
Page 317 - Its bonds and stock, the present as compared with the original cost of construction, the probable earning capacity of the property under particular rates prescribed by statute, and the sum required to meet operating expenses, are all matters for consideration, and are to be given such weight as may be just and right In each case. We do not say that there may not be other matters to be regarded in estimating the value of the property. What the company is entitled to ask is a fair return upon the value...
Page 315 - There may be circumstances which would justify such a tariff ; there may have been extravagance and a needless expenditure of money ; there may be waste in the management of the road ; enormous salaries, unjust discrimination as between individual shippers, resulting in general loss. The construction may have been at a time when material and labor were at the highest price, so that the actual cost far exceeds the present value ; the road may have been unwisely built, in localities where there is...
Page 317 - What the company is entitled to ask is a fair return upon the value of that which it employs for the public convenience. On the other hand, what the public is entitled to demand is that no more be exacted from it for the use of a public highway than the services rendered by it are reasonably worth.
Page 365 - An adjustment of this sort under a power to regulate rates has to steer between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one side, if the franchise is taken to mean that the most profitable return that could be got, free from competition, is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, then the power to regulate is null.
Page 349 - Perhaps the nearest approximation to the fair standard is that of bona fide investment — the sacrifice made by the owners of the property — considering as part of the investment any shortage of return that there may be in the early years of the enterprise.
Page 318 - What the company is entitled to demand, in order that it may have just compensation, is a fair return upon the reasonable value of the property at the time it is being used for the public.