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in the immediate vicinity of Martins Ferry, Ohio, which is across the river from Wheeling, W. Va. The route distance is 209.48 miles. The Cleveland and Toledo divisions intersect at Harmon. From the Cleveland division, a branch line extends northerly from Huron Junction to Huron, a lake port, a distance of 12.79 miles, and another branch extends northward along the west bank of the Ohio River from Warrenton to Steubenville, a distance of 13.69 miles. The Lorain & West Virginia extends from Lake Junction to Lorain, another port east of Huron, for a distance of approximately 25 miles.

Great quantities of iron ore are produced in the northern portions of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin and shipped from Lake Superior ports by steamer to ports on Lake Erie and then moved by rail to inland destinations where steel mills are located. The orereceiving ports on Lake Erie are Toledo, Huron, Lorain, Cleveland, Fairport, Ashtabula, and Conneaut, O., Erie, Pa., and Buffalo, N. Y. Of these ports, the applicant serves Huron, Lorain, and Cleveland, and the Pennsylvania Railroad, an intervener herein, serves Cleveland, Ashtabula, and Erie.

At Huron the applicant has extensive ore-handling facilities including a slip 1,400 feet long which adjoins a large dock. Vessels carrying ore are placed alongside the dock and unloaded either directly to railroad cars or onto the dock for storage. The dock is long enough to accommodate 2 of the large ore-handling lake boats at one time. Its equipment consists of 4 ore unloaders with a total capacity of 15,000 tons in 10 hours. The storage capacity on the docks is 500,000 tons. From Huron the ore is moved by the applicant to Canton, Massillon, Steubenville, Mingo Junction, and Martins Ferry, Ohio, Benwood, W. Va., and Monessen, Pa. One of the principal destination points is Steubenville, located on the west bank of the Ohio River at the northern end of the applicant's Warrenton-Steubenville branch. All the ore moving to that point is for the Wheeling Steel Corporation, hereinafter sometimes called the steel corporation. That concern is an integrated industry engaged in the manufacture of pipes, plates, sheets, and galvanized sheets, having units of its plant both in Steubenville, on the west bank of the Ohio River, and in East Steubenville, W. Va., on the east bank of that river. These respective facilities are connected by industry railroad tracks extending over a bridge across the river. On the west side of the river are 2 blast furnaces, 11 open hearth furnaces, a slabbing mill, a hot strip mill, a sheet mill, a galvanizing plant, an ore dock and storage facilities for raw materials. On the east side of the river are 145 coke ovens, byproduct facilities, and a storage yard for ore.

Shipments of iron ore have been transported by the applicant from Huron to Steubensville since about 1900. In the 14 years 1930-43

the applicant handled 11,144,693 tons of ore through Huron, of which 5,481,479 tons, or an average of 391,534 tons annually, were destined to Steubenville, and 5,663,214 tons, or an average of 404,515 tons annually, were moved to other destinations. Shipments to Steubenville ranged from 181,030 tons in 1931 to 561,952 tons in 1940, but amounted to only 302,547 tons in 1943. Shipments to other destinations were subject to greater fluctuations. They ranged from none in 1932 and 31,457 tons in 1938, to 992,557 tons in 1942, and amounted to 924,572 tons in 1943. For the 14-year period indicated, 57.46 percent of the entire ore tonnage handled by the steel corporation at its Steubenville plant was moved by the applicant through Huron.

Ore traffic for Steubenville is moved in solid trains of more than 50 cars to Mingo Junction, a point about 2.5 miles south of the plant of the steel corporation in Steubenville, and from there moved by yard-switching service in cuts of from 25 to 40 cars to interchange or storage tracks owned by the applicant alongside its main line near the southerly limits of the industry. The latter with its own locomotives then takes the cars inside the plant to an unloading trestle adjoining an ore dock where facilities are located for unloading direct to the furnace bins or to a storage pile as the demands of the industry may require. The trestle consists of 2 through tracks and 1 stub-end track. Openings underneath 2 of the tracks permit unloading by dumping through the dump doors of hopper cars. openings are so constructed that the ore slides to the side of the ore dock and is transferred to the storage space by gantry cranes. Other openings are pockets from which the ore is taken directly to the blast furnaces. Ore received in flat bottom cars is unloaded by a clam shell bucket operated as part of the gantry crane and from the cars placed directly in the storage piles on the ore dock. In unloading hopper cars considerable hand labor is required, and the change in handling the ore herein proposed will eliminate that expense. The storage space mentioned has a total capacity of about 260,000 tons of ore.

Some of the

The steel corporation comparatively recently concluded that its ore-storage facilities in Steubenville were inadequate and unduly expensive to operate, and that sufficient area was not available to permit an enlargement thereof or the establishment of additional unloading facilities at the present location. Accordingly it began construction of new ore-unloading facilities in East Steubenville at a point north of and contiguous to Follansbee. These facilities will consist of a storage yard in which railroad cars loaded with ore will be placed and from there taken by industry locomotives and placed on the platform of a large car dumper, hoisted, and dumped into specially constructed 90-ton transfer cars. If the ore is immediately required at the blast furnace, the loaded transfer cars will be moved by

the industry locomotives across the bridge to the present ore trestle in Steubenville and mechanically dumped. Should the ore not be immediately required by the blast furnace, the loaded transfer cars will be moved from the car dumper by industry power south along the same track and dumped mechanically into a track which will serve the ore bridge which in turn will transfer the ore back into storage piles. When ore from the storage piles is required it will be transferred by the same crane and moved back to the transfer cars and taken across the river to the ore trestle.

Another facility being constructed in East Steubenville is a sintering plant which is primarily an ore-purifying machine in which the fine ore goes through a conglomerating process by means of heat and a lumpy, porous material is produced which increases the rate of operating the blast furnace and aids in a greater production of ore in the same furnace confines. About 75 percent of the sinter produced will be consumed in Steubenville and the remainder shipped by river transportation to other plants of the steel corporation at Martins Ferry, Benwood, or Portsmouth. Work is progressing rapidly on the new facilities and the sintering plant, the ore bridge, and the car dumper were to have been placed in operation in the latter part of July 1944. Five transfer cars have been purchased but will not be delivered until some later date. Delivery is expected within a reasonably short time. When those facilities are completed all the ore handled by the industry will first be handled on the east side of the river as described. The storage yard in Steubenville will be used only for emergency purposes, and in such cases the ore will be brought over from East Steubenville. None of it will move direct to the trestle from the west side of the river as is the usual custom at the present time. Until the transfer cars are received, the steel corporation expects to borrow side dumper equipment.

The applicant serves Steubenville but has no line reaching East Steubenville, whereas the Pennsylvania Railroad has lines reaching both of those points and can make delivery at one point or the other as may be required. If, in accordance with its plans, the steel corporation declines to take further deliveries of ore in Steubenville, the applicant will be unable to handle any of the ore traffic for that industry unless it is able to make some arrangement to serve East Steubenville. Both the applicant and the steel corporation requested the Pennsylvania to join with the former in the establishment of joint through rates from Huron to East Steubenville but the request was declined. The applicant then proceeded to explore other possibilities in order to avoid the complete loss of the tonnage and revenue therefrom. The proposal herein appears to the applicant to be the only possible solution to the situation.

As previously stated, the Steubenville and East Steubenville units of the industry are connected by a railroad bridge, and a network of industry tracks are on both sides of the river. In Steubenville they connect with the applicant's line of railroad, and in East Steubenville they lead to and will serve the new unloading facilities. The applicant proposes to reach and serve the ore facilities in East Steubenville by operating under trackage rights over the tracks and bridge of the steel corporation. The total length of main track to be used is 10,403 feet, but in connection therewith the applicant also proposes to use 1,194 feet of storage track on the west side of the river, and 3,570 feet thereof on the east side of the river. The operation is to begin near the southerly limits of the industry in Steubenville where the applicant now effects its ore deliveries, and will extend north along the plant's western boundary over a single track on a rising grade for about 2,000 feet and turn sharply to the east entering upon the unloading trestle previously mentioned, then continue eastwardly on a single track over the bridge across the Ohio River into East Steubenville, and then turn south on a descending grade along the easterly limits of the industry to the storage tracks serving the ore-unloading facilities. The applicant is able to bring cuts of from 25 to 40 cars from its Mingo yard to the present interchange tracks with 1 engine. However, about 17 percent of the movement of ore across the river by the applicant would be in cuts of 8 cars with 1 engine, and the remainder of the traffic in cuts of 16 cars with 2 engines for that portion of the haul from the present interchange point to the westerly end of the trestle approaching the bridge, a distance of about 3,000 feet, and 1 engine for the remainder of the haul. Because of the heavy traffic handled across the bridge by the industry in connection with its various plant operations, the additional operation by the applicant will necessitate a close schedule, movements sometimes following each other after a lapse of only a minute. Some delay to the applicant's crews appears unavoidable, because its operation must be performed at the convenience of the industry, although the latter will cooperate as much as possible. Under the contemplated schedule, it would require 20 hours to move a cargo of ore amounting to 192 cars across the bridge.

The agreement between the parties provides that the applicant shall be given the right to move its locomotives and cars over the tracks described for the sole purpose of effecting delivery of cars loaded with ex-lake ore at the new ore-unloading facilities of the steel corporation and returning such cars when made empty to the tracks of the applicant. For this service a payment is to be made to the steel corporation of 78.15 cents a car for each loaded or empty car handled over its tracks by the applicant. The steel corporation would perform at its own expense all the maintenance required on

the bridge and other tracks which the applicant would use. Train and engine crews while engaged in such work are to be deemed joint employees of the respective parties for the purpose of determining liability. In general, each party will assume full responsibility for all injuries or damage caused by its own operation, and appropriate provisions are made for determining responsibility. In case no agreement can be reached, the matters in dispute are to be submitted to arbitration. The agreement is made subject to the approval of this Commission and to the rights of the trustees under a first mortgage covering the property in question in the event of a default thereunder. All of the applicant's operations over the facilities are to be conducted under the operating rules of the steel corporation, but the latter agrees to cooperate with the former to the extent of affording it an opportunity to perform the service without undue delay to its locomotives and crews.

A vice president of the steel corporation testified that the applicant would not be permitted to use the facilities of that company to reach East Steubenville unless proper compensation is received.

The main track to be used by the applicant is ballasted with slag and laid with 100- and 130-pound rail. It has a limiting grade of 2.15 percent east-bound and 2.06 percent west-bound, and the maximum curvature is 28°. Cross and switch ties are untreated and the bridge ties treated. The main bridge across the river consists of approaches on the east and west banks of the river and a main span over the river itself. The westerly approach is a one-span, singletrack, deck-plate girder bridge on a concrete abutment and is 103 feet in length. The main span is a single-track three-span cantilever truss bridge on four concrete piers, and has a total length of 1,120 feet with a channel span of 660 feet and a clearance of 80 feet above the normal pool level of the stream. The easterly approach is a fourspan single-track deck-plate girder bridge on three concrete piers and a concrete abutment and has a length of 400 feet. The track leading to the bridge from the west is a part of the steel-unloading trestle which is 820 feet in length. The applicant estimates the cost of the property involved in the transaction to be $1,034,433 and the depreciated value thereof to be $716,941. The estimated cost of the bridge and trestle are $577,930 and $180,036, and their depreciated value $380,166 and $102,040, respectively.

The agreed charge of 78.15 cents a car which the applicant would pay for use of the facilities was determined by dividing the sum of the estimated annual maintenance cost, depreciation, taxes, and estimated fair rate of return on the property by the average number of cars which would have been handled over such facilities annually by both the applicant and the steel corporation, had the arrangement been in

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