Paul R. Hitchcock is Senior Policy Advisor based in
Holland & Knight's
Jacksonville office
The unintended consequences of regulatory action may sometimes
come as a surprise, but often there are clues that could inform
decision makers—if they know where to look.
Two colossuses of the rail industry, Union Pacific Railroad (UP)
and BNSF Railway Company, are butting heads over UP's right (or
lack of a right) to perform switching operations on a BNSF main
line in Washington state. As readers of this blog are certainly
aware, each privately-owned railroad operates over its own
proprietary rail lines, and only in limited cases does the owner
share rights to use its tracks with another railroad. Such an
arrangement—called trackage rights—was entered into by
predecessors of UP and BNSF in 1909. The purpose of the arrangement
was to allow each railroad to reach and serve a jointly-owned
switching railroad which picks up and delivers traffic to customers
on behalf of both
