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Through rates and fares.
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47.—(1) Where on or after the appointed day in pursuance of section twenty-five of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888, a railway company or person requires traffic to be forwarded at through rates or fares the company or person shall give written notice of the proposed through rate or fare to each company owning any part of the through route (hereinafter called “the forwarding company”) stating both its amount and the route by which the traffic is proposed to be forwarded, and, where a company gives such notice, it shall also state the apportionment of the through rate or fare.
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Each forwarding company shall, within ten days or such longer period as the rates tribunal prescribe after the receipt of such notice, by written notice inform the company or person requiring the through rate or fare whether it agrees to the rate or fare and the route, and, if it objects to either, the grounds of the objection.
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(2) The rate or fare shall come into operation at the expiration of the said ten days or other prescribed period:
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Provided that, if before that expiration any such objection as aforesaid has been sent, or if, in the case of a rate, the rate is less than five per cent. or more than forty per cent. below the combined standard charges of all the forwarding companies, the matter shall be referred to the rates tribunal for their decision.
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(3) If an objection is made to the granting of the rate or fare or to the route, the rates tribunal shall consider whether the granting of the rate or fare is a due and reasonable facility in the interest of the public, and whether, having regard to the circumstances, the route proposed is a reasonable route, and shall allow or refuse the rate or fare accordingly or fix such other rate or fare as may seem to the rates tribunal just and reasonable.
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(4) Where upon the application of a railway company or person requiring traffic to be forwarded a through rate or fare is agreed to by the forwarding companies or is made by order of the rates tribunal, the apportionment of such through rate or fare, if not agreed upon between the forwarding companies, shall be determined by the rates tribunal.
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(5) If there is no objection except as to the apportionment of the rate or fare, the rate or fare shall come into operation as provided by subsection (2) of this section in the case where no objection has been sent by a forwarding company, but the decision of the rates tribunal as to its apportionment shall be retrospective; in any other case the operation of the rate or fare shall be suspended until the decision is given.
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(6) In apportioning a through rate or fare between the railway companies concerned the rates tribunal shall take all the circumstances into account, including any special charges, fixed allowances, and minimum mileage amounts, which any company may have been entitled to make or receive in respect of the route or any part of the route over which such through rate or fare applies.
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(7) For the purpose of calculating the through rate or fare, the standard charge for each portion of the through route shall be that which would have been applicable to such portion had the conveyance for the entire distance of the through route been upon the railway of the company owning such portion, and as if throughout the through route the mileage had been continuously upon one railway, and shall be calculated on the shortest working distance between the two points over the railways of the forwarding companies:
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Provided that in such a calculation effect shall be given to any statutory provision whereby a special mileage is allotted in respect of any portion of railway.
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(8) The rates tribunal shall have power to decide that any proposed through rate or fare is just and reasonable, notwithstanding that a less amount may be allotted to any forwarding company out of the through rate or fare than the standard rate or fare which the company is entitled to charge, and to allow and apportion the through rate or fare accordingly.
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(9) Where a railway company uses, maintains, or works, or is a party to an arrangement for using, maintaining, or working, vessels for the purpose of carrying on a communication between any towns or ports, the provisions of this section shall extend to such vessels and to the traffic carried thereby.
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(10) Where part of the through route is over a railway of a light railway company or of a railway company to which no schedule of standard charges applies, or is by sea, this section shall have effect as if the ordinary rate or fare for the time being chargeable for the conveyance of the traffic over that railway or by the sea route were the standard charge.
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(11) This section shall not apply where part of the through route is over a canal.
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