Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Volume XIII

Chapter III.—Cessions of railway lines (Art. 371)

Article 371.

Subject to any special provisions concerning the cession of ports, waterways and railways situated in the territories over which Germany [Page 684] abandons her sovereignty and to the financial conditions relating to the concessionnaires and the pensioning of the personnel, the cession of railways will take place under the following conditions:

(1): The works and installations of all the railroads shall be handed over complete and in good condition.
(2): When a railway system possessing its own rolling-stock is handed over in its entirety by Germany to one of the Allied and Associated Powers, such stock shall be handed over complete, in accordance with the last inventory before November 11, 1918, and in a normal state of upkeep.
(3): As regards lines without any special rolling-stock, Commissions of experts designated by the Allied and Associated Powers, on which Germany shall be represented, shall fix the proportion of the stock existing on the system to which those lines belong to be handed over. These Commissions shall have regard to the amount of the material registered on these lines in the last inventory before November 11, 1918, the length of track (sidings included), and the nature and amount of the traffic. These Commissions shall also specify the locomotives, carriages and wagons to be handed over in each case; they shall decide upon the conditions of their acceptance, and shall make the provisional arrangements necessary to ensure their repair in German workshops.
(4): Stocks of stores, fittings and plant shall be handed over under the same conditions as the rolling-stock.
: The provisions of paragraphs 3 and 4 above shall be applied to the lines of former Russian Poland converted by Germany to the German gauge, such lines being regarded as detached from the Prussian State System.

Note to XII, 371

The Commission for the Division of German Rolling Stock was appointed by the Commission on Ports, Waterways and Railways of the Paris Peace Conference in February 1920. Its work was completed by March 1923.

On December 21, 1921 the Conference of Ambassadors decided that mail cars were not to be included in the divisible rolling stock.

Rolling stock credited under this article at the close of the Reparation Commission accounts on January 20, 1930 was estimated at 270,237,842 gold marks.