Task: songer_usc2

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
The most frequently cited title of the U.S. Code in the headnotes to this case is 49. Your task is to identify the second most frequently cited title of the U.S. Code in the headnotes to this case. Answer "0" if fewer than two U.S. Code titles are cited. To choose the second title, the following rule was used: If two or more titles of USC or USCA are cited, choose the second most frequently cited title, even if there are other sections of the title already coded which are mentioned more frequently. If the title already coded is the only title cited in the headnotes, choose the section of that title which is cited the second greatest number of times.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge.
These are consolidated petitions to review cease and desist orders and damage awards entered by the Interstate Commerce Commission in a report and order of February 4, 1977. 28 U.S.C. §§ 2321, 2342, 2344. The Commission’s actions followed administrative proceedings concerning the legality of interchange arrangements between the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad Co. (BAR) and Canadian Pacific Ltd. (CP). Initiated in 1973 by the Commission itself, the proceedings focused upon complaints which Maine Central Railroad (MEC) and the Boston and Maine Corporation (B&M) filed in 1974 seeking damages on account of BAR’s purportedly unlawful preference of CP.
In agreement with an administrative law judge, the Commission concluded that BAR, “aided” by CP, had “unduly prejudiced Maine Central Railroad Co. and Boston and Maine Corporation... in the distribution of traffic in violation of section 3(4) of the Interstate Commerce Act [the Act],” 49 U.S.C. § 3(4).
Acting under authority of § 16(1) of the Act, 49 U.S.C. § 16(1), the Commission held BAR liable in damages to the two complaining carriers. But the Commission’s assessment of the amount of damages was considerably lower than the ALJ’s. It ordered BAR to pay damages of $176,323 to MEC and $86,917 to B&M, with 4% interest.
BAR here challenges the Commission’s ruling that it was guilty of conduct viola-tive of § 3(4). It also challenges the Commission’s awarding damages to MEC and B&M and the amounts assessed. In separate petitions, MEC and B&M also contest the amount of damages, claiming that the ALJ’s higher assessments should have been adopted.
We conclude that the Commission had ample basis to find that BAR violated § 3(4) and that its conduct damaged MEC and B&M. We also sustain the Commission’s determination of damages. However, since we find the cease and desist orders to be overly broad, we vacate those orders and remand that aspect of the case for clarification.
I
At the heart of BAR’s allegedly improper conduct is a formal agreement that BAR and CP concluded in July, 1970, initiating a shipper solicitation program in an attempt to divert “as much traffic as possible” from MEC and B&M onto BAR’s alternative connecting line, CP. The facts we state are drawn from the opinions of the ALJ and the Commission. Except as noted, they are substantially undisputed.
BAR’s track network spans 541 miles in Maine. It connects with CP at Brownville Junction, located 45.3 miles north of Northern Maine Junction, where BAR interchanges with MEC. MEC connects further on with B&M. These four railroads skirt and cross the Canadian border in the northeastern reaches of Maine, offering alternative through routes for shippers with goods to be transported across the region. Paper, frozen vegetables, starch, clay, and wood-pulp, primarily, are shipped over these lines. Depending on a shipper’s origination and destination points, he may have the option of routing his traffic via BAR and CP, or via BAR with MEC and B&M. BAR is primarily an originating carrier, receiving goods directly from shippers rather than from other railroads, and shipping them out toward destinations not reached by its lines.
In October of 1969, the Amoskeag Co., a company controlled by a “voluntary association” known as Dumaines, purchased 99 percent of BAR stock. Frederic C. Du-maine, who controls Dumaines, became a director and chief executive officer of BAR after the purchase. When this purchase was made, Amoskeag owned 26 percent of MEC stock as well; the Commission found that “word of an impending merger between MEC and BAR became widespread” after the acquisition. In early November, 1969, the president of BAR (who had stayed on at the request of Dumaine) asked that BAR’s general freight manager prepare a traffic study showing which of the cars presently traveling via Northern Maine Junction could instead be interchanged at Brownville Junction, without modifying their destinations. A series of memos on this subject followed; most were passed on to Dumaine by the president of BAR, in late November and early December of 1969. The memos detailed the commodities and numbers of carloads that were subject to such a diversion; one set forth the estimated loss, about $2.8 million per year, that was predicted to accrue to MEC and B&M should all 24,000 such carloads successfully be rerouted. Another memo, circulated in mid-December, compared transit times for goods traveling the alternative routes, and showed little over-all difference between the two routes.
Negotiations between CP and BAR to arrange a cooperative effort in support of a freight diversion plan were initiated late in 1969, and continued through the first half of 1970. Salient features of the negotiations were BAR’s undertaking to furnish CP origin and destination statistics of all traffic subject to diversion, CP’s duty aggressively to solicit new traffic, and CP’s agreement to expand and improve its interchange facilities at Brownville Junction in order to handle the expected additional traffic. CP also indicated by letter its understanding that any agreement regarding concerted solicitation efforts that was ultimately concluded would be “long-term and not subject to any reversal of policy” by BAR.
In mid-January, BAR investigated the potential financial impact on BAR of the proposed re-routing efforts: it compared the divisions that it would receive from additional traffic of different commodities when shipped over CP instead of over MEC. The investigation showed that diversion would decrease BAR’s revenues in some cases and induced CP to offer to pay BAR a “car allowance” for every additional car moving over its lines that would otherwise give BAR a diminished division.
After further discussion and correspondence, the terms of an agreement were reached in early June of 1970, and activity pursuant to that agreement intensified. Under the heading “PRIVATE” a written confirmation of the agreement set forth inter alia that BAR had,
“agree[d] to interline with CP Rail via Brownville Junction as many cars of paper products and potatoes as it is possible for it so to interline and anticipates that by reason of this agreement such interline traffic will be increased by approximately 24,000 cars annually as follows:
“Forwarded to CP Rail
Paper 11,000
Potatoes 4,500
Other 3,500
Sub-total 19,000
Received from CP Rail
Misc. 5,000”
The agreement described the allowances that CP agreed to pay BAR on additional carloads of potatoes and paper products that would be interlined at Brownville Junction; those payments were to be made “quarterly by check through the Claims Section of the Auditor of Freight Claims”. CP also formally undertook to improve its interchange facilities. Not specifically spelled out in the memorandum, but apparent from the correspondence and testimony regarding the negotiations of early 1970, was the commitment of both parties vigorously to solicit traffic on behalf of CP. The pact was to bind the parties over a fifteen year period; there was provision, however, for reopening and renegotiation every five years, on 180-day notice. The agreement was not formally executed until July 31, 1970, but it was by its terms to take effect retroactively, as of January 1, 1970.
The Commission received evidence that pursuant to this agreement, both carriers approached shippers, urging them to route their traffic over CP instead of via MEC. Though service differences such as transit time, reliability, and car supply were sometimes cited to the shippers in support of the solicitations, those comparisons do not appear to have been grounded in either fact or prior study. BAR also “distributed suggested routes to the principal shippers on its lines.... All suggested routes were via Brownville Junction.” CP and BAR personnel made some solicitation visits jointly, in search of more traffic for CP.
The sales efforts of BAR and CP coincided, with a drop in traffic shipment over MEC that was marked enough to prompt MEC’s inquiry of shippers and carriers about the possible reasons behind the decrease. As MEC became generally aware of the intensified promotion campaign on CP’s behalf, MEC engaged in some counter-solicitation in an attempt to stem the tide, and evidently had some success. BAR’s and CP’s efforts continued in varying intensity over five years, until the agreement was terminated at CP’s request on February 18, 1975, retroactive to January 1, 1975.
II Liability under § 3(4)
Section 3(4) of the Act, entitled “Interchange of traffic”, provides,
“All carriers subject to the provisions of this chapter shall, according to their respective powers, afford all reasonable, proper, and equal facilities for the interchange of traffic between their respective lines and connecting lines, and for the receiving, forwarding, and delivering of passengers or property to and from connecting lines; and shall not discriminate in their rates, fares, and charges between connecting lines, or unduly prejudice any connecting line in the distribution of traffic that is not specifically routed by the shipper. As used in this paragraph the term ‘connecting line’ means the connecting line of any carrier subject to the provisions of this chapter or any common carrier by water subject to chapter 12 of this title.” [Emphasis supplied.]
49 U.S.C. § 3(4). In a rate discrimination case brought under the section, the Supreme Court has commented generally, “In the absence of any settled construction of § 3(4),... its manifest purpose to deprive railroads of discretion to apportion economic advantage among competitors at a common interchange must be the basic guide to decision.” Western Pacific Ry. Co. v. United States, 382 U.S. 237, 244, 86 S.Ct. 338, 343, 15 L.Ed.2d 294 (1965).
The Supreme Court has not had occasion expressly to construe the language in § 3(4) barring “undue prejudice” in the distribution of traffic. However, a three-judge court in Southern Pacific Ry. v. United States, 277 F.Supp. 671 (D.Neb.1967), aff’d mem., 390 U.S. 744, 88 S.Ct. 1442, 20 L.Ed.2d 275 (1968), has interpreted this part of § 3(4) to prohibit a carrier from soliciting traffic preferentially, in favor of one connecting line over another:
“The prohibition of Section 3(4) is against discriminatory conduct of the carrier against connecting lines. The Act cannot be circumvented by wrongfully inducing the shipper to commit the discrimination in place of the carrier. In other words, the legislation is not to be so weakly construed that it permits the carrier to accomplish indirectly what he cannot do by direct preferential routing. In view of the clear policy expressed by the statute, we see no meaningful distinction between arbitrarily soliciting the unrouted freight at that time and arbitrarily routing it should the shipper leave it unrout-ed.... ‘[T]here is no basis for the contention that Congress intended to exempt any discriminatory action or practice of interstate carriers affecting interstate commerce which it had authority to reach.’ U
“... [W]e feel that preferential solicitation when done on a ‘preconcerted’ and ‘systematic’ discriminatory basis,. falls within the statutory prohibition of Section 3(4) as well [as preferential routing]. The preferential solicitation dictated by the agreement is without concern for competitive benefits of similar lines and without relationship to the best possible service to the shipper. It is as much an apportionment of ‘economic advantage’ as direct routing itself.”
277 F.Supp. at 685, quoting Houston, East & West Texas R. Co. v. United States, 234 U.S. 342, 356, 34 S.Ct. 833, 58 L.Ed. 1341 (1914), and Western Pacific Ry., supra. It is to be noted that the judgment in Southern Pacific was summarily affirmed by the Supreme Court, although summary affirmance on statutory questions such as were there presented does not inevitably conclude future interpretations of § 3(4). Mandel v. Bradley, 432 U.S. 173, 97 S.Ct. 2238, 53 L.Ed.2d 199 (1977) (per curiam); Fusari v. Steinberg, 419 U.S. 379, 95 S.Ct. 533, 42 L.Ed.2d 521 (1975) (Burger, C. J., concurring).
We accept the district court’s interpretation in Southern Pacific, and the Commission’s similar construction in this case. Section 3(4) addresses the “interchange of traffic.” The proscribed act is “unduly prejudicpng] a connecting line in the distribution of traffic.” A defense is provided carriers who route traffic “specifically routed by the shipper,” New York v. United States, 568 F.2d 887, 894 n. 12 (2d Cir. 1977); this is consistent with other provisions of the Act that protect shippers’ freedom. The other subsections within § 3(4) all speak to a carrier’s obligation to afford even-handed treatment to its connecting lines, except room is allowed for different treatment when warranted by so-called “service considerations.” The provision seems obviously meant to avert the anti-competitive effects of a powerful or well-positioned carrier using its influence and position in favor of one connecting line over another, and thus skewing the market as that market is structured under the Act.
Especially in light of Southern Pacific, we think the language of the statute put BAR fairly on notice that its conduct was prohibited. BAR, primarily an originating carrier, waged a broad-gauged and long-term solicitation campaign in support of only one of its connecting lines, CP. There is substantial evidence supporting the Commission’s finding that the sales effort was initiated, and continued, not on the basis of any markedly superior service (i. e. “service considerations”) that CP furnished its shippers, but rather for some other motive. The evidence indicated that in the study of comparative transit times undertaken prior to BAR’s broaching the possibility of joint solicitation with CP, no one carrier demonstrated a distinct advantage. Until after the negotiations had begun, BAR attempted no assessment of the reliability of alternative carriers, nor even of BAR’s own divisions in the rates of commodities shipped over the two available routes. An examination of the latter subsequently revealed that BAR itself would lose revenues on potatoes and paper products should those goods be interlined with CP rather than with MEC, causing CP to agree to pay BAR so-called “car allowances” for diverted traffic. The facilities of CP did not dictate that it would be in every shipper’s interest to ship via CP: CP had to expand and upgrade its interchange facilities with BAR as part of the agreement to solicit the divertible traffic.
Further, BAR points in its brief to no specific instances where BAR’s recommendations to shippers were individually tailored according to service considerations. BAR’s solicitation efforts were uniformly on behalf of CP. Its undertaking was to solicit “all traffic possible” for CP, not just traffic that CP could, objectively, handle better than others. The agreement BAR entered into with CP committed it to seek traffic on behalf of CP over a fifteen-year period, without provision for release in less than five years. Should CP’s service have deteriorated, BAR remained obliged to solicit on its behalf. The agreement was a secret one; the “car allowances” CP was to pay BAR appear to have been concealed as freight claim payments. BAR favored CP by providing it with a detailed list of shippers and commodities originating on BAR lines; BAR distributed no such lists to other carriers as a matter of policy. This cannot conceivably constituted even-handed treatment in the distribution of traffic.
Post hoc characterization of these activities as salutary promotion of competition through fair-minded recommendations to strong and sophisticated shippers is implausible. Though the Commission made no express finding that these solicitations were fraudulent or coercive, nor that competition, as distinct from competitors, was injured by the campaign, its findings did not reveal the impartial approach toward connecting lines in the distribution of traffic that is required of an originating carrier by § 3(4).
We therefore have little hesitancy in upholding the Commission on the facts of this case. In so doing, we go no further than to support a ruling that active and deliberate solicitation by an originating carrier for one or more of its connecting lines, to the plain neglect and detriment of other connecting lines, violates § 3(4) of the Act, when such solicitation is not supported by a significant service differential between those carriers (or any other specific exception grounded in the Act) that objectively could justify a departure from impartial treatment.
While this construction of § 3(4) seems clear enough, BAR disagrees, and has launched a multi-faceted attack on both the Commission’s interpretation and application of the section. First, with CP, it urges that the traffic that it solicited was “specifically routed by the shipper,” in that it arrived at BAR’s loading platforms, for example, with routing instructions signed by the shipper. BAR argues that it merely followed the shippers’ instructions when it routed the solicited traffic via CP. Moreover, BAR claims to have been prohibited by § 3(4) from rerouting that traffic in derogation of the shippers’ wishes. BAR relies correla-tively on sections 15(10), 15(11), and 15(12) of the Act, 49 U.S.C. §§ 15(10), 15(11), 15(12), as exemplifying Congress’ intention to protect “unfettered shipper choice,” and submits that to construe § 3(4) as prohibiting BAR from routing in accordance with shippers’ instructions would “make a mockery” of § 15(10), and conflict with the purposes of the Act.
We find no merit in this argument. Section 3(4), while consistent with the subsections of § 15, does not blindly deify “shipper choice.” Its focus is inter-carrier relations. The shipper choice that BAR relies on in its defense was tainted by BAR and CP’s solicitation efforts, which were not founded upon the shippers’ service interests, and provides no satisfactory justification of the systematic favor BAR bestowed on CP.
BAR objects that no inquiry was made into whether the prejudice suffered by MEC and B&M was “undue.” It contends that “undue” prejudice refers to injury incurred as a result of harm to competition, drawing an analogy to antitrust law. But while the Commission has characterized the statute as “pro-competitive”, that characterization does not thrust § 3(4)’s construction into the thick of antitrust doctrine. BAR’s analogy asks too much. Undue prejudice may refer to a disadvantage to a connecting line that is unwarranted by service considerations. Such harm to connecting lines as may result from a carrier’s breach of the strictures of § 3(4) are recoverable in damages under the terms of the Act without an independent assessment of the state of “competition” in the market, and the Commission is empowered to make such an award. 49 U.S.C. §§ 8, 13(1), 16(l). And as the Commission noted, it is “inapposite for BAR and CP to maintain that the BAR-CP agreement promoted competition when a normal competitive situation presupposes that each connecting line has equal advantage and opportunity to solicit shippers.”
BAR further urges that its soliciting activities and agreement with CP were not shown to have “distributed traffic.” It says that it would be illogical to conclude that the ultimate routing instructions given by the shippers on each of the thousands of shipments reflected BAR’s choice rather than the shipper’s choice. But while it might be possible for a minor connecting carrier to maintain that its solicitations on behalf of another connecting line did not carry enough weight to amount to “distribution”, an originating carrier such as BAR, controlling many miles of track by which shippers gained railway access to various destination points, could reasonably be found to command a position from which it exerts substantial influence over shippers’ choice of routes, regardless of a shipper’s experience or sophistication. This is not to say that an originating carrier necessarily controls its shippers — it may depend on them collectively as much as they on the carrier — nor that a carrier could sanction noncooperative shippers by simply refusing them service — other sections of the Act limit a carrier’s power in dealing with shippers; but a shipper might well feel compelled to cooperate with an originating carrier rather than incur its disfavor. Further, BAR and CP instituted and carried out a systematic program of solicitation, pursuant to agreement, rather than sporadically asking for business in a few instances. We see no reason not to characterize this as an effort to “distribut[e] traffic” in contravention of § 3(4).
Last, BAR asserts that the Commission’s reading of the statute conflicts with the first amendment of the United States Constitution. This contention was not raised before the agency, but even assuming it is now open we see no merit in it. Though first amendment protection has lately been afforded some types of commercial speech, see Bates v. State Bar, 433 U.S. 350, 97 S.Ct. 2691, 53 L.Ed.2d 810 (1977) (attorney advertising); Linmark Associates, Inc. v. Willingboro, 431 U.S. 85, 97 S.Ct. 1614, 52 L.Ed.2d 155 (1977) (residential “for sale” signs); Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748, 96 S.Ct. 1817, 48 L.Ed.2d 346 (1976) (advertising of drug prices), the first amendment has not yet been held to limit regulation in areas of extensive economic supervision, such as the securities, antitrust, and transportation fields, where the exchange of information can be a vital element in an illegal scheme. Shaping the regulation of “speech” in those areas is more a matter of policy development than one of constitutional right; it lies most appropriately with Congress and the regulatory agency. Even if some language in the above-cited cases may have seemed to herald a new era of first amendment law, see Virginia State Board of Pharmacy, supra, 425 U.S. at 762, 96 S.Ct. 1817, the revolution has yet to envelop the transportation field to the extent BAR asserts.
Moreover, unlike the statutes questioned in the cases cited by BAR, the challenged construction of § 3(4) does not dictate silence on the part of carriers. It does not prevent an originating carrier from providing information of any and all sorts to shippers on an even-handed basis. It does require that an originating carrier make good faith efforts to ascertain the accuracy of purported “information,” and it limits the pressure that an originating carrier may put on a shipper. Without demonstrable superiority of a connecting line, an originating carrier, in its influential position, is precluded from sponsoring that line. Cf. Bates v. State Bar, supra, 433 U.S. at 4904, 97 S.Ct. 2691. It is hard to see how this standard does violence to first amendment values.
In the present case, despite the absence of an express ruling that BAR’s solicitation included statements that were fraudulently or deceptively made, the Commission’s opinion leaves little doubt that BAR’s statements were at least misleading. That a few of the statements were discovered after the fact to have been inadvertently accurate offers no justification for BAR’s manifestly unequal treatment of CP and MEC, and does not rebut an overall judgment that the solicitations were recklessly made.
Finally, we dismiss BAR’s argument that the Commission’s findings were not supported by substantial evidence on the record viewed as a whole. Though BAR can point to portions of the record that might have justified findings different from the Commission’s, the Commission could properly choose to rely on the evidence that it found most trustworthy and plausible. Consolo v. FMC, 383 U.S. 607, 620, 86 S.Ct. 1018, 16 L.Ed.2d 131 (1966). Its conclusions derive substantial support from the record: this is the test they must satisfy. Illinois Central RR. Co. v. Norfolk & Western Ry. Co., 385 U.S. 57, 66, 69, 87 S.Ct. 255, 17 L.Ed.2d 162 (1966); Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U.S. 474, 71 S.Ct. 456, 95 L.Ed. 456 (1951); 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(E).
Ill Damages
1. The Commission’s method of calculation.
To calculate the extent of the damage to MEC and B&M resulting from BAR and CP’s unlawful conduct, the Commission applied a “before and after” test. It projected the expected market shares of the two carriers in certain divertible commodity traffic on the basis of previolation market figures, and compared those shares with the actual market shares enjoyed by MEC and B&M over the period from 1970 through 1974, when the unlawful activity was in progress. The market share differential was then translated into terms of carloads lost by the carriers for each commodity. Each carload of a given commodity was assigned a figure representing the average gross revenue brought in by such carloads. To each carload was also attributed a portion of the carrier’s operating expenses, including certain overhead costs which were determined in accordance with guidelines developed in rate-making procedures before the Commission. These costs were integrated into the damage formula by application of certain “operating ratios” calculated in standard fashion by the Commission; those ratios reflect the proportion of expenses to revenues in traffic of a given commodity. The Commission totaled the estimated net revenues lost per carload in each type of traffic, combined with the number of carloads lost per commodity by virtue of BAR’s conduct, to give a monetary estimate of the injury suffered by MEC and B&M. The Commission attempted to exclude from its calculation, traffic that originated or terminated on MEC, B&M, or CP, since that traffic would not have been subject to diversion. B&M’s damages were assessed essentially as a proportion of MEC’s award. See infra.
2. Damages — The carriers’ primary objections
All three carriers complain at length about the Commission’s computation of damages. BAR strenuously argues that no damages at all should be recovered by MEC and B&M. It says that the proofs relied on by the Commission and proposed by those carriers are “purely speculative” and fail to satisfy the standards of proximate cause required in a court of law. We find this contention without merit. A similar “before and after” comparison of market shares has been accepted in antitrust litigation when more precise measurements of the plaintiff’s damage would be too burdensome or are unobtainable for some other reason. See, e. g., Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., 327 U.S. 251, 66 S.Ct. 574, 90 L.Ed. 652 (1946); Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555, 51 S.Ct. 248, 75 L.Ed. 544 (1931); Harverhill Gazette Co. v. Union Leader Corp., 333 F.2d 798, 804-07 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 931, 85 S.Ct. 329, 13 L.Ed.2d 343 (1964). BAR contends that by examining interchange reports for Brownville and Northern Maine Junctions over 1970-74 and interviewing shippers, the injured carriers could and should have reconstructed unlawful solicitations and the shippers’ state of mind with regard to individual shipments in order to arrive at a precise count of shipments that were unlawfully diverted. But such an investigation would have required combing through the records of more than ten thousand shipments in each year of the five-year period. The difficulty of the task has been augmented by BAR’s destruction, since the violation, of interchange information concerning the destinations of the diverted freight, as well as of the computer printouts on shippers that BAR passed on to CP. The law does not demand that injured parties be so burdened. The wrongdoer could be required to bear the risk of uncertainty in the calculation of the number of carloads diverted by its actions, see Story Parchment, supra, 282 U.S. at 563-65, 51 S.Ct. 248. The Commission supportably found that MEC and B&M had met the burden of establishing “some resultant injury” from the § 3(4) violation. This was a rational inference, for, as the ALJ explained,
“[tjhere are no facts of record which evidence service superiority in movements via Brownville Junction over Northern Maine Junction. In 1969 the transit times via the two interchange points were comparable. Routing changes resulting from carrier rate adjustments and concessions are short term and occur in both study and compared periods. There is no evidence of any abnormal market trend in the compared periods which affected originations and terminations on BAR. Nor is there any evidence of changes in supply sources and sales outlets that required elimination of MEC or MEC and B&M participation as intermediate carrier or carriers in the movements. What were present in the 1970-74 periods which were not present in 1969 were (1) the BAR-CP agreement and solicitation campaign and (2) the Great Northern-CP 100 car a month agreement.”
Once the fact of injury was demonstrated, the Commission was authorized to determine if “any party. is entitled to an award of damages under the provisions of this chapter for a violation thereof.” 49 U.S.C. § 16(1). The method of assessing the damages to be charged to BAR became a matter for the Commission’s reasoned judgment, based on its expertise in the field. NLRB v. Seven-Up Bottling Co., 344 U.S. 344, 73 S.Ct. 287, 97 L.Ed. 377 (1953); see Bagel Bakers Council v. NLRB, 555 F.2d 304, 305 (2d Cir. 1977). The Commission had merely to settle on a reasonable and rational method of computation, see Bagel Bakers Council, supra. We must defer its choice among rational methods. NLRB v. Seven-Up Bottling Co., supra. The Commission’s decision to award damages for this § 3(4) violation, with its reasoned conclusion as to their measurement, reflected a policy choice peculiarly within its realm. See 49 U.S.C. § 12; Consolo v. FMC, supra, 383 U.S. at 620-21, 86 S.Ct. 1018 (1966); Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 83 S.Ct. 239, 9 L.Ed.2d 207 (1962); United Van Lines, Inc. v. ICC, 545 F.2d 613 (8th Cir. 1976); cf. American Power and Light Co. v. SEC, 329 U.S. 90, 67 S.Ct. 133, 91 L.Ed. 103 (1946); Maine Potato Growers v. Butz, 540 F.2d 518 (1st Cir. 1976). See generally 4 Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 30.10 (1958). Applying these principles, we disagree with BAR that the Commission’s methodology was outside acceptable limits, as providing a reasonable yardstick for estimating the harm visited on MEC and B&M by BAR’s actions.
While BAR seeks elimination or reduction of the award, the injured carriers seek reinstatement of the ALJ’s higher assessments. Thus they ask us to remand the case with instructions to reinstate the ALJ’s decision and award. However, it is not our province to choose between the awards of the ALJ and the Commission. Any review of the ALJ’s actions is only incidental to our review of the Commission’s decision. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 2321, 2342, 2344. The Commission was in no sense bound by the ALJ’s recommendation. “An agency loses no power of decision by having an administrative law judge preside at a hearing.” Davis, Administrative Law of the Seventies (1976 Supp. to Administrative Law Treatise) § 10.03 at 313. See Adolph Coors Co. v. FTC, 497 F.2d 1178, 1184 (10th Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1105, 95 S.Ct. 775, 42 L.Ed.2d 801 (1975). A reviewing court may consider the decision of the ALJ as part of the record, but, except on matters of credibility, it is due little deference when the Commission has made an independent evaluation that is substantially supported by the evidence. See United States Retail Credit Ass’n, Inc. v. FTC, 300 F.2d 212, 216-17 (4th Cir. 1962).
Thus the question before us is not whether the ALJ’s approach was, in our view, better, but simply whether the Commission’s method of computing the extent of the carriers’ injury was rational. As regards the latter question, the injured carriers are not persuasive in arguing that it was not. MEC and B&M maintain that their projections of market share (which the ALJ accepted) based on the percentage of the market held by each during 1969, a one-year period, should not have been rejected by the Commission. The Commission, however, deemed those to be speculative, and made independent market share projections, based on market share figures for the preceding five to eight years. Where a trend was. evident, the Commission extrapolated from the figures according to the trend; where no increasing or decreasing market share appeared, the Commission averaged the statistics for the preceding years and applied that simple average as a constant estimated market share during the period of the violation in order to evaluate the carriers’ loss as indicated by the traffic that was actually shipped over their lines during that period. Where figures were not available for more than a one or two-year period before the violation, the Commission declined to award damages, finding the projections based thereon “purely speculative.” (As noted above, this was the case for traffic in clay and woodpulp). Even if, as MEC and B&M maintain, a finding of wilfulness would have warranted applying a more lenient burden of proof on MEC and B&M as to the extent of their injury, this principle does not require that an alternative method, perhaps a more accurate method, be abandoned because a rougher calculation might do. In its report, the Commission examined the alternative methods proposed by the carriers, explained its reason for rejecting them, and set forth in some detail the analysis it chose to rely on. We cannot say as a matter of law that these methods were unreasonable nor that the Commission was bound to accept less definite projections. Application of the before and after test itself represented an accommodation to plaintiffs’ difficulty in the precise proof of damages. The Commission was not required to award damages on the roughest version of the already imprecise measurement.
Equally unpersuasive is MEC and B&M’s challenge to the Commission’s use of an average cost rather than incremental cost analysis in its computation of the expenses that the carriers would have sustained had they handled the diverted traffic. MEC maintains that no overhead costs should have been attributed to the additional traffic to determine the net revenues lost by the diversion; thus, it urges that we must find error in the Commission’s application of the operating ratios. But the Commission responds that it was forced to use the operating ratios because the cost data offered by MEC was deficient. The result was that “each carrier [was] entitled to the same earnings on the projected traffic that was diverted as they [were] on all other traffic.” We are unable to say that the approach taken was unreasonable. See generally Seven-Up Bottling, supra.
MEC further complains that it should have received an award of 8% interest on the damages due it. The Commission is empowered to award interest on the compensatory recovery. Louisville & Nashville RR Co. v. Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Co., 269 U.S. 217, 239-40, 46 S.Ct. 73, 70 L.Ed. 242 (1925). Its decision is not for us to disturb except in the face of abused discretion. See, e. g., George Allison & Co. v. ICC, 70 App.D.C. 375, 107 F.2d 180 (1939), cert. denied, 309 U.S. 656, 60 S.Ct. 470, 84 L.Ed. 1005 (1940). While its award of interest at 4% is lower than the current commercial rate, both MEC and B&M appear earlier to have sought only 6% interest and the carriers failed to object to the ALJ’s decision to award only 4% interest. Given these facts and the breadth of the Commission’s discretion with respect to the awarding of any interest at all, see George Allison & Co., supra, we are not persuaded that the Commission’s low award exceeded its discretion.
The injured carriers also question the Commission’s methodology in reducing B&M’s award from the sum originally calculated by the ALJ. The Commission discovered that

Question: The most frequently cited title of the U.S. Code in the headnotes to this case is 49. What is the second most frequently cited title of this U.S. Code in the headnotes to this case? Answer with a number.
Answer:

Answer: 5