February 24, 1939 Mr. J. R. Guilliams, General Counsel Chicago Surface
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«•* February 24, 1939 Mr. J. R. Guilliams, General Counsel Chicago Surface Lines 231 South LaSalle Street Chicago, Illinois Dear Sir: Thank you for your letter concerning the status of Chicago Surface Lines under the Railroad Retirement Act. As you state, Chicago Surface Lines has been declared merely a "title or designation of convenience". People vs. City of Chicago, 270 IJLI. 188, 206. It is unnecessary, however, to consider whether” that fact would preclude a finding that Chicago Surface Lines is a carrier. Chicago Surface Lines is the name given to the properties of four street railway companies combined pursuant to a municipal or dinance of the City of Chicago incorporating an agreement among those companies and adopted in 1913 to secure unified operation of the City’s street railway system. Two of the four constituent companies of Chicago Surface Lines, the Calumet and South Chicago Railway Company and the Chicago City Railway Company, have already been ruled not to be employers within the meaning of the Railroad Retirement Act. The other two constituent companies, the Chicago Railways Company and the Southern Street Railway Company, are apparently of the same character as the two companies already ruled upon. Moody’s Manuel of Public Utility Securities for 1937 furnishes the following information concerning the latter two companies. Their equipment con sists wholly of passenger street cars and service and snow-sweeping cars, together with a relatively small number of trolley and gasoline buses owned by the Chicago Railways Company. The sole fare charged is a seven-cent cash fare, three rides for twenty cents. Their lines are located entirely within the City of Chicago, under whose franchise they operate. Under the franchise of the Chicago Railways Company, by far the larger of the two companies, the City is entitled to purchase all that company's property for municipal ownership. All four companies appear to be subject to the jurisdiction of the Illinois Commerce Commission, which in 1936 directed Chicago Surface Lines to provide a ten-cent fare by means of interchange and transfer. Moreover, none of these companies has ever filed annual reports with the Interstate Commerce Commission, nor had any correspondence with the Commission concerning the filing of such reports. Finally, it appears that none of these companies is directly or" indirectly owned or controlled by - 2- or under common control with any express company, sleeping-car company or carrier by railroad subject to Part I of the Interstate Commerce Act. Upon the grounds that the companies are not so owned or controlled, that they are not themselves express companies, sleeping- car companies or carriers by railroad subject to Part I of the Inter state Commerce Act, and that in any event they are no more than a street, interurban, or suburban electric railway not operating as a part of a, or the, general steam-railroad system of transportation, exempted by Section 1 (a) of the Act, it is my opinion that Chicago Surface Lines, the Southern Street Railway ^nd the Chicago Railways Company are not employers within the meaning of the Railroad Retire ment Act. Very truly yours, Lester P. Schoene General Counsel.