The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-02-01
Would Make Railroads Publish
Their Time Tables.
Public Service Commission of
New York Has Novel Idea.
PEOPLE COMPLAINING
Would Have Time Cards in
Every Newspaper.
Other Items of General Interest
in Railroad Circles.

The public service commission in New
York state has taken up a matter of
wide popular interest, which is the best
means to be employed by railroad COM
panies in informing the public of the
arrival and departure of their trains.
The commission believes that steam
railroad corporations should be obliged
by law to print their time tables in the
newspapers
For some unknown reason there has
been a sort of conspiracy on the part OF
the managers of railroads to cheat their
patrons O. of the knowledge which
thew are entitled to have presented in
the most convenient possible FORM
Readers of newspapers in this region
has repeatedly complained because Of
the absence of the time tables in the
newspapers upon which they had come
to rely. The result has been a petty
annoyance that is constantly present.
The average man does not care to be
Obliged to keep a railroad time table
or guide in his Clothes for reference at
any moment when he wishes to know
the time of the departure of the train
that he must take, If he has neglected
to so arm himself. he is obliged to use
the telephone to call up the station, Mt
a waste of time which is grudged.
In the Empire state this popular
was hoped that remedy might be APP
piled. The public service commission
report reveals a lack of power to COM
pei the railroads to do this thing, but
law is called for which will require
steam railroads to do their duty by the
public. Here is the statement made by
that commission:
COMMISSIONS Statement.
NO better or more ever-present
means of making information readily
accessible at all times and to all people
has ever been discovered than the local
newspapers, which can always be found
in every house and nearly every place
of business. The commission believes
1T to be wholly reasonable to require
the steam railroad corporations to use
this means of informing the public and
giving the public notice which the law
justly requires. A notice which fails 10
reach those for whose benefit it is re-
quired is in effect no notice, and a
notice of train departure, which is not
available to one desiring to use the
train is useless to that person. 1t is
not thought that the expense involved
would be SO great as to demand serious
consideration. In numerous and diverse
cases where publicity is deemed es-
sential the use of newspapers is re-
quired by law. The custom for many
Years has shown its utility in the case
under consideration. The commission
1t has power to require the publication
OF local time tables in newspapers, and
recommends the enactment of a law re-
quiring all operating steam railroad cor
porations having a station in any viii
lage or city in which a newspaper is
published to publish in such newspaper
or newspapers a proper table showing
the time of arrival and departure of all
regular passenger trains at such sta
tion.
This does not mean that newspapers
have complained to the public service
commission because of a petty loss in
advertising, but that the patrons of the
railroads thus seriously incommoded
have taken this matter in hand. 1t is
difficult to understand, from the view
point of business good sense, why the
railroads should have taken the posi-
ton complained of. In this che matter
at least, the railroad managers of an
older generation knew more than the
persons who have succeeded them.
Senator Franklin c. Platt of Painted
Post has introduced a bill in the New
York legislature at Albany, which, in
line with the recommendations of the
public service commission, Second dis
trict, SO amends the railroad law as to
compel the publication in newspa pers
of railway time tables. Complaints from
all sections of the state are on file at
the office of the commission because