This is an appeal under the Urgent Deficiencies Act of October 22, 1913, c. 32, 38 Stat. 208, 219, 220 (28 USCA § 47), from a decree of a District Court for Northern Illinois, three judges sitting, which dismissed the complaint upon which appellants sought to set aside an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
The order, made under section 13(3)(4) of the Interstate Commerce Act (49 USCA § 13(3, 4), directed the removal of unjust discrimination against interstate commerce, resulting from disparity of the intrastate and interstate switching rates of interstate rail carriers in the Chicago Switching District, lying partly in Illinois and partly in Indiana. It provided that the intrastate rate should be not less than the interstate switching rates prescribed in an earlier order of the Commission in Switching Rates in Chicago Switching District, 177, I.C.C. 669, of 3 cents per 100 pounds for one-line hauls, 3.5 cents for two-line hauls, and 4 cents for three or more line hauls, of carloads of minimum weight of 60,000 pounds. The rates, both interstate and intrastate, which were thus displaced were commodity rates of 2.5 cents per 100 pounds for one and two line hauls, and 3 cents for three or more line hauls. The rates are for district intrastate switching movements, having no relation to main line movements. They are chiefly between local industries, involve a complete service originating and terminating within the district, and embrace a loaded and empty car movement and two complete terminal services.
The Commission, of its own motion, began the first proceeding in Switching Rates in Chicago Switching District, supra, in which the carriers, interested shippers, and the state commissions of Illinois and Indiana were parties, and in the course of which extensive hearings were conducted jointly by the Interstate Commerce Commission and the two state commissions. Pending this proceeding, the carriers were directed by the Interstate Commerce Commission to make a cost study of switching movements in the District. This study, which involved the preparation of statistics showing the longest, shortest and average hauls within the District and detailed cost data for selected periods in 1926-1927, was completed and submitted to the Commission and was an important part of the evidence on which it based its d cision.
In its report and order, made July 31, 1931, the Commission found the rates which it prescribed for interstate switching service to be reasonable for future application on all commodities shipped within the District, except railway equipment on its own wheels. It also stated that a large percentage of the traffic was intrastate in character, but that the record did not disclose any difference in the conditions surrounding the handling of the interstate and intrastate movements. It made no order with respect to the intrastate traffic, bt expressed the hope that the two state commissions would bring the intrastate rates into harmony with the interstate rates which it had prescribed.
The state commissions failed to prescribe a higher level of intrastate rates, and the carriers of the District, shortly after the new rates became effective, filed with the Interstate Commerce Commission a petition to establish an increased rate for intrastate traffic, whereupon the Commission, on November 2, 1931, reopened the proceeding for further hearing with respect to the relationship of intrastate and interstate rates. A complaint filed with the Commission by numerous shippers attacking the lawfulness of the interstate switching rates was assigned for hearing with the proceeding already pending.