companies to make use of a proper system of communication between passengers, guards, and drivers, to impose regulations as to the use of level crossings, to order bridges or subways to be constructed in lieu of level crossings, to insist upon the running of workmen's trains where they consider it necessary, and to call for various statistical returns from the railway companies.
In 1873, an Act was passed entitled the "Railway and Canal Traffic Act," which contained provisions of great importance as affecting the railways in this country. Divested of various minor enactments and of all unnecessary verbiage, the essential principles of this Act were as follows:—
(1) A new tribunal was constituted consisting of three "Railway Commissioners," one of whom was to be of experience in the law, and another of experience in railway business, who were to decide all questions of difference between any two railway companies, or between a railway company and a canal company or between any individual and a railway or canal company, upon the application of either party to the difference.
(2) It was ordained that where two, railways formed part of a throughout route between two given points, one of the said companies might call upon the other to afford facilities for the conveyance of through traffic over the lines of the two companies, by giving written notice of the through rate to be charged and the route to be travelled. If the company receiving the notice objected to the rate or the route, the matter was to be referred to the Railway Commissioners for decision.
During the fifteen years that this Act has been in force, the Railway Commissioners have had a considerable
