Excerpt from Third Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners: For the Year Ending December 1, 1885

Sir - Pursuant to the requirements of the provisions of section 6 of an act of the Legislature of this State, approved March 6, 1883, concerning railroads and other common carriers, we have the honor herewith to submit to you the third annual report of this Board.

This report embraces statements and statistics from the reports and returns to this office, showing the doings in transportation, and the financial result of railroad operations in this State for the year ending June 30, 1885. We have also incorporated herein, reports of such of the decisions of the Board in the settlement of complaints against railroad companies, and the de termination of controversies, as would in our judgment tend to throw light upon the workings of the system of railroad transportation in this State, and the effect of the law, as a feature of regulation, applied thereto.

Numerous complaints come to the Board from shippers, and others hav ing business relations with railroads, the settlement of which is frequently accomplished either through correspondence, or personal conference with the manager of the railroad complained of, and without the necessity of formal decision on our part; the complaint in such instances involving no particular principle, but arising from misunderstanding between an officer or agent of the company and a shipper, or through mistake of agent. To publish the correspondence in all such cases would unduly swell this report, and be productive of no useful purpose. We have, however, given a list of such cases in this report.

Up to the close of the past fiscal year there were miles of new road added to the railroad mileage in this State. Since the close of the year, viz., June 30, 1885, several additional railroads have been put under con tract, and their construction is, at this writing, being proceeded with; and it is evident that a very considerable increase in the railroad mileage of Kansas will be effected by the close of the current year. The extreme western part of the State is settling up with almost unexampled rapidity, and railroads are sure to press closely upon the march of population.

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