challenged repeatedly under the due process clause but seldom with
success. Orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission establishing
through routes and joint rates have been sustained,[215] as has its
division of joint rates to give a weaker group of carriers a greater
share of such rates where the proportion allotted to the stronger group
was adequate to avoid confiscation.[216] The recapture of one half of
the earnings of railroads in excess of a fair net operating income, such
recaptured earnings to be available as a revolving fund for loans to
weaker roads, was held valid on the ground that any carrier earning an
excess held it as trustee.[217] An order enjoining certain steam
railroads from discriminating against an electric railroad by denying it
reciprocal switching privileges did not violate the Fifth Amendment even
though its practical effect was to admit the electric road to a part of
the business being adequately handled by the steam roads.[218]
Similarly, the fact that a rule concerning the allotment of coal cars
operated to restrict the use of private cars did not amount to a taking
of property.[219] Railroad companies were not denied due process of law
by a statute forbidding them to transport in interstate commerce
commodities which have been manufactured, mined or produced by
them.[220] An order approving a lease of one railroad by another, upon
condition that displaced employees of the lessor should receive partial
compensation for the loss suffered by reason of the lease[221] is
consonant with due process of law. A law prohibiting the issuance of
free passes was held constitutional even as applied to abolish rights
created by a prior agreement whereby the carrier bound itself to issue
such passes annually for life, in settlement of a claim for personal
injuries.[222]

Occasionally, however, regulatory action has been held invalid under the
due process clause. An order issued by the Interstate Commerce
Commission relieving short line railroads from the obligation to pay the
usual fixed sum per day rental for cars used on foreign roads, for a
space of two days was arbitrary and invalid.[223] A retirement act which
made eligible for pensions all persons who had been in the service of
any railroad within one year prior to the adoption of the law, counted
past unconnected service of an employee toward the requirement for a
pension without any contribution therefor, and treated all carriers as a
single empl