This is an appeal from decrees of a specially constituted District Court of three judges enjoining and setting aside orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission which required certain carriers to cease and desist from spotting cars on industrial plant tracks as part of the service rendered under interstate line-haul rates and from granting allowances out o the line-haul rates to industries doing such spotting. The appellees are five industrial concerns affected by the orders. They contend that the spotting service in question is transportation within the meaning of the Interstate Commerce Act (49 U.S.C.A. § 1 et seq.); that the performance of the service, or the payment of an allowance to an industry which itself performs it, is sanctioned by custom and practice and by previous adjudications of the Commission; and that line-haul rates were fixed in contemplation of the rendition of such service. They further charge the orders are void because not supported by the Commission's findings or the evidence.
Upon its own motion the Commission instituted an investigation known as Ex parte No. 104, Practices of Carriers affecting Operating Revenues or Expenses. Part II of that proceeding had to do with terminal services. Voluminous evidence was adduced largely consisting of testimony by operating officials of carriers and traffic representatives of shippers touching the service of spotting cars at points upon the systems of plant trackage maintained by large industries. The Commission's report summarized its conclusions based on the evidence as to conditions at approximately two hundred industrial plants where spotting allowance were paid by the carriers and numerous plants where such services were performed by the carrier. The Commission found that line-haul rates had not been fixed to compensate the carriers for the performance of the service in question and that the railroads, after fixing their rates, had assumed a burden not previously borne by them. It found that section 15(13) of the act (49 U.S.C.A. § 15(13) permitting allowances by carriers to those performing a portion of the service of transportation had been made the instrument of abuse by the payment of unwarranted allowances and added: 'When a carrier is prevented at its ordinary operating convenience from reaching points of loading or unloading within a plant, without interruption or interference by the desires of an industry or the disabilities of its plant, such as the manner in which the industrial operations are conducted, the arrangement or condition of its tracks, weighing service, or similar circumstances, * * * the service beyond the point of interruption or interference is in excess of that performed in simple switching or team-track delivery.' In conclusion, the report states that payment for or exemption of the cost of service performed beyond such points of interruption or interference is in violation of section 6 (49 U.S.C.A. § 6), provides the means by which the industry enjoys a preferential service not accorded to shippers generally, dissipates the carrier's funds and revenues, is not in conformity with the efficient or economical management contemplated by the Interstate Commerce Act, and is not in the public interest. No orders were made upon the footing of the main report, but thereafter, Division 6 promulgated supplemental reports recapitulating the testimony touching particular plants and making findings with respct to each and the service rendered thereat. Upon the basis of these supplementary proceedings orders to cease and desist were entered. The carriers thereupon gave notice of a revision of the applicable tariffs canceling allowances or withdrawing the spotting service. Each appellee filed a bill praying that the order affecting it be set aside and enforcement be restrained. The causes were consolidated for hearing and were disposed of upon a single record in one opinion. Separate decrees were entered in the respective causes granting the requested relief. The appellants took a single appeal from all the decrees. We hold the Commission's orders were lawful and should not have been set aside.