"Tap Line Case" Summary of Central Railway of Arkansas  
     
  Abstracted from "Tap Line Case", published in Decisions of the Interstate Commerce Commission, 23 I.C.C. 277, 23 I.C.C. 549, and in Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, 234 U.S. 1.  
 
 
 
     
 

CENTRAL RAILWAY OF ARKANSAS. The Central Railway Company of Arkansas was incorporated in January, 1906, with a capital stock of $2,600,000. Its charter de-scribes a line 130 miles in length terminating at or near Hot Springs, Ark.; but as actually completed in 1907 it terminates at a point known as Brizi, Ark., about 13 miles from its other terminus at Ola, where it connects with the Rock Island. Only 10 per cent of the authorized capital is outstanding, that amount having been issued to the Fort Smith Lumber Company, which furnished the funds for building the track and purchasing the equipment, and by which the stock was transferred, apparently as a dividend, to its own stockholders. The mill of the lumber company is at -Plainview, on the tap line 7 miles from its junction with the Rock Island. The lumber company has an unincorporated logging track extending into its timber from a point intermediate between the mill and the junction point, but it has no engines or cars. The tap line has 5 locomotives, a combination passenger car, 3 box cars, and 16 flat cars. It also has three train crews, a number of track men, and a station agent at the mill point, Plainview, where there is a station building.

The logs are hauled by the tap line to the mill, an average distance of from 7 to 10 miles, at a charge of 50 cents per 1,000 feet, log scale, set up against the lumber company. The tap line also moves the lumber from the mill to Ola, a distance of 7 miles, and receives from the Rock Island a division of from 34 cents to 4 cents per 100 pounds.

It is claimed that there are three independent sawmills on the tap line and five or six other mills in that vicinity which haul their lumber to the tap line for shipment. But it appears that the aggregate lumber shipments furnished by others than the Fort Smith Lumber Company does not exceed 80 carloads per annum. All of these independent mills receive their logs by dray and their capacity is undoubtedly small. The report to the Commission for the fiscal year 1910 states the movement of forest products as 58,108 tons, substantially all of which seems to have been supplied by the proprietary company. It is stated that 40 per cent of the miscellaneous freight, amounting in the same year to 17,360 tons, was supplied by the lumber company. Only 1,558 tons of this miscellaneous traffic moved outbound. The junction point, Ola, is a town of about 1,000 people. Plainview seems to be a company town, having a population of about 1,500; and has been built since the opening of the mill and construction of the tap line. It is said to have two banks and six general stores. The tap line carries passengers, its revenue from that traffic aggregating $3,654.70 for the year 1910, in addition to which it received $644.31 for the carriage of mail and express matter. It. had a net surplus on June 30, 1910, of $2,650.60, resulting from its operations for previous years, there being a slight deficit for that year.

In this case we fix a maximum of 1-1/2 cents as the division of this tap line out of the rate on the products of the mill of the controlling company.

 
     
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Text and images were digitized and proofread from the original source documents by Murry Hammond. Contact Murry for all corrections, additions, and contributions of new material.