If the RR is private property, located on private property, with NO PUBLIC GRADE CROSSINGS, it's non-FRA territory, even if it's a business, even if it's connected to a "real railroad", and even if it interchanges traffic with a real railroad.

Sammy -

You’re sort of describing a plant railroad under FRA. They fall under an “FRA Lite” sort of or just like tourist roads.

If commerce is involved, the STB is gonna want to call you a common carrier railroad. I’ve had similar discussions with an STB lawyer about what we can and cannot do working with a potential “customer” that wanted to lease a spot for occasional transloading that we’d have to switch. We didn’t want to become a common carrier, hence the call to the STB to find out what’s what.

Oh no. It is decidedly NOT simple.

Eric,

What I described is indeed a sizeable railcar repair facility. The boss man kindly offered me a place to keep and operate my locomotive in case we didn't get FRA approval otherwise. It's FRA VERY lite, as in we do whatever we want unless something should cross the border to BNSF.

A number of JC McHugh customers are steel mills, and they only comply with FRA regs if they choose to. Of course, they can't send any of their non complying cars out into the real world.

Many tourist RRs qualify for this status, too, but if they're open to the public there are plenty of other regulatory agencies to make life miserable for them.

If your locomotive is private property on private property, and you're not running it as a business, you don't need nuthin from nobody. (Now watch --- it would be just my luck that somebody will get in trouble following my advice).

Been There, Done That,
Sammy

Common carrier authority and rights are a completely separate topic from FRA jurisdiction. For our purposes common carrier status confirms the company's role in interstate commerce and exempts it from certain types of local regulation. The FRA is concerned with primarily with safety. The FRA dicision tree on jurisdiction is at https://railroads.dot.gov/legislation-regulations/regulations-rulemaking/safety-jurisdiction-tourist-railroads.

Megan - Yup, agreed that the FRA and STB are totally different animals.

As I think I understand it, ETR - the guy in the videos - would like to be able to receive cars from a Class 1 and service customers (I believe there are five potential customers that have switches but currently don’t use rail service). That would make him a terminal or switching railroad per the STB. Serving a customer, other than himself and outside of his own property would make him a common carrier. Hence, involvement with AAR, STB and FRA. That’s how it was explained to me by various officials and jives with all I’ve read. Then toss in the costs of insurance, funding needed, paperwork, maintenance, dealing with the Class 1, etc. as well as having to turn a profit, and all I can say is “good luck”, hope it works out”.

Keep in mind I’m talking in generalities here, not details. As stated previously by others, consult professionals for definitive answers.

This topic comes up every so often and as discussed, the Surface Transportation Board (STB) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) have two different roles.

Regarding FRA and regulatory oversite regarding safety, I always refer to 49 CFR Part 209, Appendix A. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/s ... o-Part-209

About halfway into this appendix is a description regarding The Extent And Exercise Of FRA's Safety Jurisdiction. It explains that FRA's statutory jurisdiction extends to all entities that can be construed as railroads by virtue of their providing non-highway ground transportation over rails or electromagnetic guideways. For policy reasons, however, FRA does not exercise jurisdiction under all of its regulations to the full extent permitted by statute.

This is where it describes jurisdiction policy over, "Plant Operations, Tourist Operations, Commuter and Passenger Operations, etc.

Some history in this section as well on how we got here.

Mike Ramsey
FRA Passenger Rail Safety Specialist (Retired)
Safety & Regulatory Compliance, American Heritage Railways

You're really quite close -

My comments are really intended to clarify, not correct.

We tend to be very picky about the use Class (Roman Numeral) I, II, and III v Class (Arabic Numeral) 1, 2, 3, et c. in part because of a series of seemingly everlasting lawsuits which seem to stem from the term "operate a Class 3 railroad" being used in operating and lease agreements when it apparently should have read "operate a Class III railroad" and this was later interpreted by the city which owned the line to mean a requirement for maintaining every inch of track to FRA Class 3 track standards.

Thanks for that. And no offense taken (I’m not prickly, learning as I go). I also hadn’t finished my first cup of coffee. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Our situation under consideration was similar but a bit different which is what prompted my call as we didn’t know if it would change the status quo. I got a fuzzy answer so we let it go. Yeah, ASLRRA makes more sense for most of it. And yes, ETR has a connection to a Class I in place last I knew. [Yay, I typed the right character this time]

ETR connects with the Genesee & Wyoming.

I’m batting 1,000 here. ETR is off the C&OR. For some reason, I’ve never been able to keep the west ends of the Ft. Wayne line (NS) and Panhandle line (C&OR/G&W) straight. It’s all PRR to me though it would likely make me a heretic in PRR fans’ eyes. Oh well…. And I can’t blame that on coffee. I’ll shut up now.

Gone quiet.

What is going on with East Terminal Ry. anything?

The OP has one post total, either he became sensible or he was a troll from the beginning.

Thank you all for your responses, and so far I have talked to NS and CSX they both do not have any line available at the moment, so for now I am stuck waiting to hear from them if they have anything available.

I thought CSX had a list of lines they were actively still trying to rid themselves of.
The real question is how likely would a C1 actually call you back vs working with G&W, Patriot, Watco, etc that they've done multiple projects with in the past...