Opinion ID: 621920
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of the Federal Statute

Text: The ICCTA defines transportation as “services related to . . . movement” by locomotive “including receipt, delivery, elevation, transfer in transit, refrigeration, icing, ventilation, storage, handling, and interchange of passengers and property.” Id. § 10102(9). As noted, this case involves a category of industrial activity known as transloading. Of preliminary concern then, is whether the statutory term “transportation” encompasses transloading. This inquiry need not detain us long. The undisputed facts of this case are that sand arrives in rail cars traveling on interstate railroad lines operated by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific railroads. From there, the rail cars switch onto a short stretch of railroad track that leads to the Silo Project. At that point, the sand exits into a pit through ports on the cars, is elevated, and is later off-loaded onto trucks that carry the sand to natural-gas wells at distant locations. This activity satisfies the coverage of the statute as it concerns the “elevation” and also the “storage, handling, and interchange of . . . property” involving the movement of 5 Case: 10-11041 Document: 00511744889 Page: 6 Date Filed: 02/01/2012 No. 10-11041 a locomotive. Id. § 10102(9). Though authority is hardly necessary for this indisputable point, authority is available. See, e.g., Norfolk So. Ry. Co. v. City of Alexandria, 608 F.3d 150, 158 (4th Cir. 2010); N.Y. Susquehanna & W. Ry. Corp. v. Jackson, 500 F.3d 238, 248 (3d Cir. 2007); Green Mountain R.R. Corp. v. Vermont, 404 F.3d 638, 642 (2d Cir. 2005). Having determined that transloading qualifies as rail transportation, we now must answer whether the particular transloading that is the subject of this appeal is “by a rail carrier,” here TCB.4