safety, health and convenience, and of such other matters and things as the commission may deem essential to full and thorough information as to the physical condition of the several railroad properties of the State and the proper enforcement of the police regulations enacted for the control and management of the same. Such mechanical engineer shall have had at least ten years' experience in mechanical engineering with such general knowledge of the requirements of railroad operation as shall fit him to skillfully perform the duties imposed upon him by the provisions of this act. He shall receive an annual salary of $2,500 payable monthly on a warrant of the Auditor General upon the certificate of the commission.

(j) The commission shall be known collectively as "Michigan Railroad Commission," and in that name may sue and be sued. It shall have a seal with the words "Michigan Railroad Commission," and such other design as the commission may prescribe engraved thereon, by which it shall authenticate its proceedings and of which the court may take judicial notice.

(k) The commission shall keep its office at the capitol and shall be provided suitable room or rooms, necessary office furniture, supplies, stationery, books, periodicals, maps, and all its necessary expenses shall be audited and paid as other State expenses are audited and paid. The commission may hold session at any other place than the capitol when the convenience of the parties so requires. The commissioners, secretary, clerks, inspectors, and such experts as may be employed, shall be entitled to receive from the State their actual necessary expenses while traveling on the business of the commission, such expenditures to be sworn to by the person who incurred the expense, and to be approved by the chairman of the commission.

(1) The commission shall have the power to adopt and publish rules to govern its proceedings and to regulate the mode and manner of all investigations and hearings of railroads and other parties before it, and all hearings shall be open to the public.

(m) The commission may confer by correspondence, by attending conventions, or otherwise; with the railroad commissioners of other States, and with the Interstate Commerce Commission, on any matters pertaining to railroads.

SEC. 3. (a) The provisions of this act shall apply to the transportation of passengers and property between points within this State and to the receiving, switching, delivering, storing and handling of such property, and to all charges connected therewith, including icing and mileage charges, and shall apply to all railroads, corporations, express companies, car companies, freight and freight line companies and to all associations or persons whether incorporated or otherwise that shall do business as common carriers upon or over any line of railroads in this State, and to any common carrier engaged in the transportation of passengers and property wholly by rail or partly by rail and partly by

water.

(b) This act shall not apply to street and electric railroads engaged solely in the transportation of passengers within the limits of cities, nor to private railroads not doing business as common carriers: Provided, however, Nothing in this act contained shall be construed to

authorize the commission to interfere with, lessen or impair or to authorize the impairment of any franchise provision, contract or agreement as to rates of fare now existing between any municipality, city, village or township and any tram railway, street railway, interurban or suburban railway company, or to increase or lessen the rate of fare fixed by such franchise, contract or agreement, or to deprive any tram railway, street railway, interurban or suburban railway company of the right to charge for the carriage of passengers the rate of fare authorized and fixed by any franchise, grant or contract made or entered into between any municipality, city, village or township and any such tram railway, street railway, interurban or suburban railway company.

(c) Express companies and sleeping car companies shall be deemed common carriers.

(d) The term "railroad" as used in this act shall be construed to include both steam and electric roads, and shall mean and embrace all corporations, companies, individuals, associations of individuals, their lessees, trustees or receivers (appointed by any court whatsoever), who now or may hereafter own, operate, manage, or control as a common carrier in this State any railroad or part of any railroad, either steam or electric, or cars or any other equipment used thereon, or bridges, switches, spurs, tracks, side tracks, terminal facilities or any docks, wharfs, or storage elevators used in connection therewith, or any kind of terminal facilities used or necessary in the transportation of persons or property designated herein and also all freight depots, yards and grounds used or necessary for the transportation or delivery of any said property whether the same are owned by said railroad or otherwise.

(e) The term "transportation" shall include cars and other vehicles and all instrumentalities and facilities of shipment of carriage, irrespective of ownership, or of any contract expressed or implied for the use thereof and all services in connection with the receipt, delivery, elevation, switching and transfer in transit, ventilation, refrigeration or icing, storage and handling of property transported.

SEC. 4. (a) Every common carrier is hereby required to furnish reasonably adequate service and facilities, and shall provide and furnish transportation of passengers and property upon reasonable requests therefor, and all charges made for any service in connection therewith, or for the receiving, switching, delivering, storing, or handling of such property shall be reasonable and just, and every unjust and unreasonable charge for such service is prohibited and declared to be unlawful.

(b) All railroads incorporated under the general railroad law of this State, as between themselves, and all electric railroads, as between themselves, shall establish through routes and just and reasonable rates applicable thereto, except as hereinafter provided.

(c) Whenever passengers or property are transported over two or more connecting lines of railroad between points in this State, and the railroad companies have made joint rates for the transportation of the same, such rates and all charges in connection therewith shall be just and reasonable, and every unjust and unreasonable charge is prohibited and declared to be unlawful: Provided, That a less charge by such railroads for its proportion of such joint rates than is made locally between the same points on their respective lines shall not for

that reason be construed as a violation of the provisions of this act, nor render such railroads liable to any of the penalties hereof.

SEC. 5. (a) No common carrier, subject to the provisions of this act shall, after January 1, 1908, directly or indirectly, issue or give any free ticket, free pass, or free transportation for passengers, except to its employes or their families, its officers, agents, surgeons, physicians or attorneys at law, and members of their families; to ministers of religion, traveling secretaries of Railroad Young Men's Christian Associations, person engaged exclusively in charitable and eleemosynary work; to indigent, destitute and homeless persons and to such persons when transported by charitable societies or hospitals, and the necessary agents employed in such transportation; to inmates of the National Homes or State Homes or Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, and Sailors' Homes, including those about to enter and those returning home after discharge, boards of managers of such homes; to necessary caretakers of live stock, poultry, fruit and vegetables; to employes on sleeping cars and express cars; to linemen of telegraph and telephone companies and others engaged in the care and operation of telegraph and telephone lines; to railroad postal employes, postoffice inspectors, custom inspectors, and immigration inspectors, to newsboys on trains, baggage agents, witnesses attending any legal investigation in which the common carrier is interested, persons injured or killed in accidents, and members of the families of the same, and physicians and nurses attending such persons, and dependent relatives of injured or deceased employes, and such other persons as the commission may from time to time by special order designate: Provided, That this provision shall not be construed to prohibit the interchange of passes for the officers, agents, attorneys and employes of common carriers, and their families; nor to prohibit any common carrier from carrying passengers free with the object of providing relief in cases of general epidemic, pestilence, or otherwise calamitous visitation: And Provided, That nothing shall be construed to prohibit the exchange of mileage for advertising in publications of general circulation.

(b) Any common carrier willfully violating this provision shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and for such offense on conviction shall pay to the State of Michigan a penalty of not less than $100 nor more than $500, and any persan other than persons excepted in this provision, who uses any such free ticket, free pass or free transportation, shall be subjected to a like penalty.

(c) Nothing herein shall prevent the carriage, storage or handling of freight free, or at reduced rates for the United States, the State or any political subdivision thereof, or any municipality thereof, or for charitable purposes, or to and from fairs and expositions for exhibition thereat, or household goods, or other personal property of railway employes, or the issuance of mileage, commutation, or excursion passengers' tickets: Provided, That the same shall be obtainable by all persons applying therefor without discrimination, or of party tickets: Provided, That the same shall be obtainable by all persons applying therefor under like circumstances and conditions.

SEC. 6. (a) Any railroad subject to the provisions of this act, upon application of any shipper tendering traffic for transportation, shall construct, maintain and operate upon reasonable terms a switch con

nection with any private side track, when such connection is reasonably practicable and can be put in with safety and will furnish sufficient business to justify the construction and maintenance of same, and shall furnish cars and transport to the best of its ability any traffic tendered to, over, or from such private side track, without discrimination in favor of or against any such shipper: Provided, This shall not be construed to compel a railroad to remove from or deliver on a private side track traffic tendered in less than car lots: And Provided, That shipments of live stock, perishable property and explosives may have precedence over all other classes of merchandise. If any railroad shall fail to install and operate any such switch or connection as aforesaid on application therefor in writing by any shipper, any shipper may make complaint to the commission, as provided by section 22 of this act, and the commission shall make investigation of the same, and it shall determine as to the safety, practicability and justification thereof, and shall fix a reasonable compensation therefor and the commission shall make an order as provided in section 24 of this act, directing the railroads to comply with the provisions of this section in accordance with such order and such order shall be enforced as hereinafter provided for the enforcement of all other orders by the commission, other than orders for the payment of money.

SEC. 7. (a) All railroads, subject to the provisions of this act, shall afford all reasonable and proper facilities by the establishment of switch connections between one another and the establishment of depots and otherwise for the interchange of traffic between their respective lines and for the receiving, forwarding and delivering of passengers and property to and from their several lines and those connecting therewith and shall transfer and deliver without unreasonable delay or discrimination any freight, or cars, or passengers destined to any point on its own line or on any connecting line, and shall not discriminate in their rates and chargés between such connecting lines: vided, Precedence may be given to live stock and perishable property), but this shall not be construed as requiring any railroad to give the use of its tracks or terminal facilities to another railroad engaged in like business.

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(b) Where it is practicable and the same may be accomplished without endangering the equipment, tracks or appliances of either party, the commission may upon application, require steam railroads and interurban and suburban railroads to interchange cars, carload shipments, less than carload shipments, and passenger traffic, and for that purpose may require the construction of physical connections upon such terms as it may determine: Provided, That nothing in this act shall be construed to require through billing of freight as between steam and electric, suburban or interurban railroads, but such suburban and interurban railroads may be used for the handling of freight in carload lots in steam railroad freight cars between shippers or consignees and the steam railroads, in the same manner and under the same general conditions, except as to motive power, as belt line railroads and terminal railroads are now or may hereafter be used for like purposes.

(c) Every corporation owning a railroad in use shall, at reasonable times and for a reasonable compensation, draw over the same the merchandise and cars of any other corporation or individual having connect

ing tracks: Provided, Such cars are of the proper gauge, are in good running order and equipped as required by law and otherwise safe for transportation and properly loaded: Provided further, If the corporations cannot agree upon the times at which the cars shall be drawn, or the compensation to be paid, the said commission shall, upon petition of either party and notice to the other, after hearing the parties interested, determine the rate of compensation and fix such other periods, having reference to the convenience and interests of the corporation or corporations, and the public to be accommodated thereby, and the award of the commission shall be binding upon the respective corporations interested therein until the same shall have been revised. Any railroad corporation refusing to comply with the provisions of this section shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding $500.

SEC. 8. Every railroad shall, when within its power so to do, and upon reasonable notice, furnish suitable cars to any and all persons who may apply therefor, for the transportation of any and all kinds of freight in carload lots. Every common carrier shall have sufficient cars and motive power to meet all requirements for the transportation of passengers and property which may reasonably be anticipated. In case of insufficiency of cars at any time to meet all requirements, such cars as are available shall be distributed among the several applicants therefor, without discrimination between shippers, or between points of shipment, whether competitive or non-competitive: Provided, Preference may be given to shipments of live stock and perishable property. The commission shall have power to make and enforce and shall make and enforce reasonable regulations for the furnishing and distribution of freight cars to shippers and switching the same, and for the loading and unloading thereof, and for the weighing of the cars and the freight offered for shipment over any line of railroad, and shall fix reasonable per diem demurrage to be paid for the detention of cars by shipper or consignee, and for the failure or delay of the railroad in the furnishing of such cars, and for the failure of the railroad to move the cars the number of miles per day as ordered by the commission: Provided, That the Upper Peninsula be exempted from the provisions of section eight of this act, insofar as they relate to the fixing of per diem demurrage charges.

SEC. 9. It shall be unlawful for any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act to charge or receive any greater compensation in the aggregate for the transportation of passengers or like kinds of property under substantially similar circumstances and conditions for a shorter than a longer distance over the same line, in the same direction, the shorter being included within the longer distance, but this act shall not be construed as authorizing any common carrier within the terms of this act to charge and receive as great compensation for a shorter distance as for a longer distance: Provided, however, That upon application to the commission appointed under the provisions of this act such common carrier may, in special cases, after investigation by the commission, be authorized to charge less for a longer than for shorter distances for the transportation of passengers or property, and the commission may from time to time prescribe the extent to which a designated common carrier may be relieved from the operation of this section of this act.