The Portland daily press., 1873-09-15
The Railroad War.

Last Friday evening Sheriff Pennell, acting
under instructions from Hon. w. l. Putnam,
attorney for the Boston and Maine Railroad
Company, served writ, of which the follow
ing is an abstract, upon Hon. Josiah H. Drum
mond, clerk and attorney for the Maine Cen
trail Railroad Company, at his re sidence in this
CITY, A copy of the same writ has been served
upon Mr.. j. S. Cushing, clerk of the Portland
and Kennebec Railroad Company at Augusta.
The writ is based upen an action to recover
the sum of $4,000 and attaches the property
of the defendant company in Cumberland
county, and summons it to appear at the Octo-
Der term of the Supreme Judicial Court to an
swer thereto.
1t begins with preamble reherasing the name.
location and general property of the Maine
Central Railroad Company; it refers to the fa-
eilities granted other roads for receiving and
delivering freight cars, persons and property at
all times, making an actual rail connection
with them, specifying particularly the Port
land, Saco & Portsmouth,, and Eastern rail-
roads; it refers to the 18th of July 1873, when
the plaintiffs demanded OF defendants that
defendants put in or allow plaintiffs to pnt IN a
connection of plaintiff S SAID rails with the de
defendants said rails at said Portland" SO that
there should be transfer of cars with or
without loads granting to them the same IA
cilites granted to other railroads in this partc-
ular as well as in checking baggage and tick
citing passengers to way stations on other roads (;
it refers to "a specific reasonable time when, to
wit, July 23d, it demanded this, and declared
plaintiffs were ready to pay all legal and prop
er charges upon said freight, Passengers and
cars, and other property, and all charges incl
dental to the premises, and to pay the expense
OF putting In and maintaining said connection
of rails, and to comply with all reasonable and
proper regulations i'll reference to the premises
it declares that the place of connection desig-
mated was easy and convenient; it charges de-
PENDANTS with willfully refusing, ON the ground
of an unlawful contract with the Portland,
Saco & Portsmouth, and Eastern railroads, and
thereby damaging plaintiffs to the amount of
more than $4,000, as plaintiffs have been put
to large expense in transferring freight. pas
sengers and baggage; it charges defendants
with doing them damage by divertng travel
and freight which would naturally have come
to them; it AYERS that defendants still refuse to
allow connection and that plaintiffs delayed
until Aug. 4 1873, when they. designated a time
and place OF connection, and gave defendants
due notice; it recounts the torcible resistance
on the part of the defendants to their making
the connection; it refers to the statute of April
l, 1885, whereby the Kennebec and Portland
Railroad Company was incorporated, also to
the additional statute of April IA, 1857, which
made all railroads subject to the general laws
of the State relating to railroads, and AYERS
that by the statute approved January 49, 1865,
defendants were holden to transfer freight and
passengers over the rails of the Portland and
Kennebec Railroad Companys railroad at all
reasonable times, and for t,ll not exceeding
its ordinary rates. it alleges that since August
IL. 1873, plaintiffs had a lawful right to con-
meet.