Federal regulators have invoked their powers to pre-empt local governments -- to make sure trains keep running unimpeded -- to back Norfolk Southern Railway in a challenge from a Washington, D.C., suburb, Traffic World reported.
The Surface Transportation Board turned aside an effort by the city of Alexandria, Va., to stop NS from operating an ethanol transfer operation next to a school and townhouse development.
City officials had challenged the NS operation, where ethanol is offloaded from tankcars to trucks for area delivery, over fears that the nearby structures and residents could be harmed in case any of those tankers might rupture and explode.
NS has had those tracks and transferred some materials there, at a juncture next to Interstate 95, long before the townhouse neighborhood sprang up. It only recently began the ethanol shipments, stirring numerous local complaints to city officials.
Yet the case hinged on hair-splitting definitional arguments, including whether the fact that NS contracted the transfer operations to another firm called RSI Leasing meant those activities no longer count as "transportation by rail carrier."
Alexandria argued that RSI's ethanol operation should not qualify for federal pre-emption. The STB rebuffed it, saying the city had not provided enough information about the NS-RSI relationship for the board to remove the preemption shield.
(The preceding article by John D. Boyd appeared on the Web site www.trafficworld.com on February 23, 2009.)
