Article X of the Texas Constitution

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Article X of the Texas Constitution of 1876 covers railroad companies and the creation of the Railroad Commission of Texas. The federal government later created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroads, and eight of the nine sections (all but section 2) of Article X were repealed in 1969 as "deadwood".

Railroad Commission of Texas

The Railroad Commission of Texas is the state agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) industry, and surface coal and uranium mining. Despite its name, it ceased regulating railroads in 2005.

Interstate Commerce Commission

The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads to ensure fair rates, to eliminate rate discrimination, and to regulate other aspects of common carriers, including interstate bus lines and telephone companies. Congress expanded ICC authority to regulate other modes of commerce beginning in 1906. Throughout the 20th century several of ICC's authorities were transferred to other federal agencies. The ICC was abolished in 1995, and its remaining functions were transferred to the Surface Transportation Board.

Contents

Sections

Section 1 gave companies the right to build railroads in Texas and to connect with others at the state line, and the responsibility to act as a common carrier, transporting passengers and freight "without delay or discrimination".

A common carrier in common law countries is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport. A common carrier offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body. The regulatory body has usually been granted "ministerial authority" by the legislation that created it. The regulatory body may create, interpret, and enforce its regulations upon the common carrier with independence and finality, as long as it acts within the bounds of the enabling legislation.

Section 2 expands on the common-carrier provisions of section 1, and charges the legislature with passing laws to enforce this. It was amended in 1890 to allow the legislature to delegate this responsibility to an agency, leading to the creation of the Railroad Commission of Texas in 1891. Section 2 is the only one to be successfully amended, and the only one that was not repealed in 1969 (notwithstanding that the Surface Transportation Board has jurisdiction over all common-carrier railroads in the USA, even those physically located within only one state, and that the section has little force of law).

Surface Transportation Board

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established in 1996 to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Interstate Commerce Commission when the ICC was abolished. Other ICC regulatory functions were either eliminated or transferred to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics within DOT.

Section 3 required every railroad operating in Texas to maintain an office in the state.

Section 4 classified rolling stock as personal property.

Rolling stock railway vehicles, both powered and unpowered

The term rolling stock in rail transport industry refers to any vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches, and wagons. In the US, the definition has been expanded to include the wheeled vehicles used by businesses on roadways.

Personal property is generally considered property that is movable, as opposed to real property or real estate. In common law systems, personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In civil law systems, personal property is often called movable property or movables – any property that can be moved from one location to another.

Section 5 prohibited the consolidation or common control of parallel railroads for anti-competitive purposes. The Southern Pacific Company was required to give up control of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway due to this section. [1]

The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway first began operation in the U.S. state of Texas in 1886. It was developed by Uriah Lott and businessmen of San Antonio as a direct route from the city to Aransas Bay on the Texas Gulf coast. It was eventually absorbed in the 20th century by Southern Pacific.

Section 6 prohibited the consolidation of railroads organized in Texas with those organized outside the state.

Section 7 required the consent of local authorities before a street railway can be chartered.

Section 8 required pre-existing railroad companies to accept Article X in order to benefit from future legislation.

Section 9 required any railroad that passes within 3 miles (4.8 km) of a county seat to pass through that seat if the citizens donated the right-of-way and land for a depot, unless topography prevented such a routing.

Requirement for a Texas office

The legislature decided in 1853 that all railroads operating in Texas should be headquartered in the state, and that was included in the 1876 constitution as section 3 of Article X. When outside companies began acquiring control of Texas railroads in the 1880s, they were required to retain the Texas corporations. Since only Texas companies could operate in the state, the outside companies could not lease the Texas companies, as decided by the courts in an 1888 lawsuit brought by Attorney General James S. Hogg against the railroads controlled by Jay Gould (International and Great Northern Railroad, Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway, and Texas and Pacific Railway, all leased to the Missouri Pacific Railroad). [2]

These separate Texas companies sometimes took the name of the parent, but often retained their original names. Systems that entered Texas and their local companies included:

The Interstate Commerce Commission approved a lease of the Texarkana and Fort Smith to the Kansas City Southern in 1933. Texas took the case to the Supreme Court but lost, and section 3 was effectively nullified. [3] The Fort Worth and Denver, the last of the Texas subsidiaries, merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1982. [2]

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References

  1. ↑ Nancy Beck Young: San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway from the Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved November 2008.
  2. 1 2 George C. Werner: Railroads from the Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved November 2008.
  3. ↑ Cecil Harper, Jr.: Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway from the Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved November 2008.
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