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How do I update a page? Wilson promised to return the railroads to private ownership after a peace treaty was signed. The Esch-Cummins Transportation Act of , which returned the railroads to private hands, advocated a sharp reversal on past policies. The federal government, which had once been ardently anti-monopoly, now encouraged mergers, provided the mergers paired strong lines with weak ones.
The ICC, in fact, dictated the merger combinations. In addition, Esch-Cummins empowered the ICC to fix minimum rates and dictate extensions and abandonments of routes. The railroad industry, which had long sought to eliminate unprofitable routes, was now saddled with them. As devastating as the new legislation was, the railroads had a still greater enemy: increased competition from cars, buses, and trucks on an ever-growing network of roads.
Passengers were electing more and more to travel by car or bus; freight shippers were increasingly choosing trucks for short- or long-haul jobs. Trucks, buses and cars could take flexible travel routes from point to point; railroads could not. For 20 years the railroads' situation worsened. Although they were losing business to competing modes of transportation, they were still considered a threat.
The Transportation Act of amended the Interstate Commerce Act to extend its reach to the other industries, but the fact remained that while regulations were not relaxed on railroads, private cars, trucks, and 90 percent of inland water carriers were exempt from government control. It wasn't until that the government reversed its policy. Railroads, it was determined, no longer posed a monopoly threat; regulations could be loosened. By this time trucks had usurped much of the railroads' high-value freight traffic, and airplanes had taken the lion's share of long-haul passenger business, as well as the lucrative contract to carry the U.
By the s and s, railroads were enjoying freedom they hadn't known since the Gilded Age of the s. Unfortunately, business did not keep pace.
In , the government formed Amtrak, a federally-supported corporation, to operate intercity passenger train service. In the Staggers Act furthered railroad deregulation, but by then, many railroads were operating under greatly reduced circumstances, if they were operating at all.
Cullom to hold the hearings that led to the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act. To hear evidence and render decisions on individual cases, the act created the Interstate Commerce Commission. This was the first federal independent regulatory commission, and it served as a model for others that would follow, from the Federal Trade Commission to the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Evolving technology eventually made the purpose of the ICC obsolete, and in Congress abolished the commission, transferring its remaining functions to the Surface Transportation Board. But while the ICC has come and gone, its creation marked a significant turning point in federal policy. Before , Congress had applied the Commerce Clause only on a limited basis, usually to remove barriers that the states tried to impose on interstate trade.
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