Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1916 — TOWNS MAY REGULATE [ARTICLE]

TOWNS MAY REGULATE

Speed of Trains, Says Supreme Court in Case Appealed by “Big Four.” Although a town may be of small population and a railroad may run through it many trains carrying interstate commerce and United States mail, the town is authorized to regulate the speed of the trains through the town, the supreme court ruled Friday. The ruling affirms a judgment of the Bartholomew circuit court for $5 against the Big Four railroad and for the town of New Point for the violation of an ordinance limiting the speed of trains through the town to 12 miles an hour.

\ The judgment of the trial court was made on its rulings on demurrers to answers by the railroad company. One of these answers wag that the ordinance was unreasonable, and for that reason void, because New Point has only 341 inhabitants, three-fourth of whom live on the north side of the railroad; that the railroad is a double track road, and that a train can be seen for 50 rods before entering the town. The answer said there is a subway under the road permitting the Inhabitants to cross from one side to the other of the tracks in absolute safety, and that only four streets cross the railroad at grade. . The railroad is an interstate road

and carries United States mail, running 14 passenger and 16 freight trains daily, the answer says, and all trains are equipped with whistles and bells to give warning. Four of the passenger trains daily stop at the station, and seven of the trains pass through the town between 10 p. m. and 5 a. m., the answer said. The supreme court holds that this is not a showing giving the courts a light to interfere with “the power of the city council, *as delegated to them by statute, to regulate the operation of trains across the streets of the town. The railroad company in the argument in its brief, presses the question of the need of the traveler on the train for speed and the present arrangements for the control of the trains and their weight and the burdensomeness of ordinances of small towns on the question of the reasonableness of the ordinance.