Opinion ID: 421083
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Existence of Truck Competition

Text: 35 Canadian National also disputes whether trucks in fact provide strong competition in [229 U.S.App.D.C. 59] the Montreal-to-New York corridor. We think that substantial evidence supports the Commission's finding that they do. 36 The Commission explained that it relied both on analysis of the principal commodities carried by the Delaware & Hudson and on testimony by shippers: 37 The commodities the D & H and B & M carry over these routes are generally commodities for which rail service is not considered market dominant. [Guilford] submitted verified statements from [three] shippers of pulp and paper which it serves. [The shippers] all testify that there is motor carrier competition for this traffic. 38 Delaware & Hudson Merger, 366 I.C.C. at 407. Canadian National correctly notes that two of the three shippers cited by the Commission are Maine paper companies who appear to use mostly the Boston & Maine/Delaware & Hudson east-west route. 11 Thus, only one shipper could testify directly to the existence of truck competition for north-south freight movement. 39 Even Canadian National's witnesses, however, admitted the existence of some truck competition. 12 Moreover, Canadian National apparently concedes that rail service is not market dominant, i.e., that the commodities now carried by rail are susceptible to truck competition. See Canadian National Brief at 21 n. 23. Finally, the ICC could properly rely, as Congress did in deregulating railroad rates in 1980, on the well-known fact that railroads carry only about one-third of all intercity freight and that the railroads' decline in market share seems to cut across ... almost every commodity group. 13 Putting these various pieces together, we find sufficient support for the ICC's finding that there is pervasive truck competition for north-south traffic.