Chapter 2939. To promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by limiting the hours of service of employees thereon
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CHAP. 2939.— An Act To promote the safety of employees and travelers upon railroads by limiting the hours of service of employees thereon. March 4, 1907. [[S. 5133](/us/bill/59/s/5133).] [[Public, No. 274](/us/pl/59/274).] *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, * That the provisions of thisRailroads.Service hours of employees restricted. Act shall apply to any common carrier or carriers, their officers, agents, and employees, engaged in the transportation of passengers 1416or property by railroad in the District of Columbia or any Territory of the United States, or from one State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia to any other State or Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or from any place in the United States to an adjacent foreign country, or from any place in the United States through a foreign country to any other place in the Meaning of word “railroad.”United States.
The term “railroad” as used in this Act shall include all bridges and ferries used or operated in connection with any railroad, and also all the road in use by any common carrier operating a railroad, whether owned or operated under a contract, agreement, or Meaning of word “employees.”lease; and the term “employees” as used in this Act shall be held to mean persons actually engaged in or connected with the movement of any train. Sec. 2. Sixteen hours the maximum continuous service of trainmen.
That it shall be unlawful for any common carrier, its officers or agents, subject to this Act to require or permit any employee subject to this Act to be or remain on duty for a longer period than sixteenTen consecutive hours off duty. consecutive hours, and whenever any such employee of such common carrier shall have been continuously on duty for sixteen hours he shall be relieved and not required or permitted again to go on duty until he has had at least ten consecutive hours off duty; and no such employee who has been on duty sixteen hours in the aggregate in any twenty-four-hour period shall be required or permitted to continue or again go on duty without having had at least eight consecutive *Provisos*.Service hours of telegraph, etc., operators.hours off duty: *Provided*, That no operator, train dispatcher, or other employee who by the use of the telegraph or telephone dispatches, reports, transmits, receives, or delivers orders pertaining to or affecting train movements shall be required or permitted to be or remain on duty for a longer period than nine hours in any twenty-four-hour period in all towers, offices, places, and stations continuously operated night and day, nor for a longer period than thirteen hours in all towers, offices, places, and stations operated only during the daytime, except in case of emergency, when the employees named in this proviso may be permitted to be and remain on duty for four additional hours in a twenty-four-hour period on not exceeding three days in Period may be extended.any week: *Provided further*, The Interstate Commerce Commission may after full hearing in a particular case and for good cause shown extend the period within which a common carrier shall comply with the provisions of this proviso as to such case.
Sec. 3. Penalty for violation. That any such common carrier, or any officer or agent thereof, requiring or permitting any employee to go, be, or remain on duty in violation of the second section hereof, shall be liable to a penalty of not to exceed five hundred dollars for each and every violation, to be Prosecutions.recovered in a suit or suits to be brought by the United States district attorney in the district court of the United States having jurisdiction in the locality where such violation shall have been committed; and it shall be the duty of such district attorney to bring such suits upon satisfactory information being lodged with him; but no such suit shall be brought after the expiration of one year from the date of such violation; and it shall also be the duty of the Interstate Commerce Commission to lodge with the proper district attorneys information of any such violations as may come to its knowledge.
In all prosecutions under this Act the common carrier shall be deemed to have *Provisos*.Unavoidable accidents, etc.had knowledge of all acts of all its officers and agents: *Provided*, That the provisions of this Act shall not apply in any case of casualty or unavoidable accident or the act of God; nor where the delay was the result of a cause not known to the carrier or its officer or agent in charge of such employee at the time said employee left a terminal, and Wrecking, etc., crews.which could not have been foreseen: *Provided further*, That the provisions of this Act shall not apply to the crews of wrecking or relief trains. 1417 Sec. 4.
It shall be the duty of the Interstate Commerce CommissionEnforcement. to execute and enforce the provisions of this Act, and all powers granted to the Interstate Commerce Commission are hereby extended to it in the execution of this Act. Sec. 5. That this Act shall take effect and be in force one year afterEffect. its passage. Approved, March 4, 1907.