It's useful to remember that a Superior Court judge has found sufficient
evidence that state law has been violated that he issued a TRO.
The TRO has been appealed, a couple of times. The appeal was also
rejected at the appellate court level.

Claims that "there is no project" other than the Russian River division
is silly and inconsistent with public documents. These documents include
filings by the NCRA describing its strategic plans to restart rail
service to Eureka and an MOU with the Harbor District pledging to
restart rail to Eureka.

Hence, there is no legal basis to claim that "the project" is only
the segment the NCRA wants to focus on today. CEQA, as interpreted
by the state Supreme Court, requires that the "whole of the project"
be considered prior to project approval. This is something the NCRA has
not done and will likely be required to do before continuing any
work that has been stopped by the TRO and certainly before starting
any service.

It is also useful to remember there are other issues not yet addressed
by the court. This includes the legality of the loan agreement
between the NCRA and NWP Co. and the legality of the Operating Lease
Agreement between NCRA and NWP Co. If the judge finds on behalf of
Novato in either of these issues, it is not clear that NWP Co. will
do. It has fronted a lot of funds to the NCRA in order for the NCRA
to pay contractors and then get reimbursed by the state. (As a "high risk"
agency, the NCRA must have paid contractor receipts to be reimbursed.
Since it has little independent sources of revenues, NWP Co. must
front the money.)

What will happen if the loan agreement is ruled illegal? Ask John Williams.

What will happen if the Operating Lease Agreement is ruled illegal? Well,
it seems that NWP Co. will be required to inform the STB that it has
no legal rights to operate freight and will have to legally remove
its rights to operate freight in the eyes of the feds.

The point: the lawsuit has significant implications for the restarting
of freight and it is far from clear how it will play out because, in part,
it will depend on what the legislature does when the NCRA loses its appeals.

Meanwhile, the SMART ballot measure is coming, which will focus the public's
attention (again) on rail. This time, however, much of the focus will be
on the combined freight/passenger train proposals and their impacts on
residences living near the track SMART has been denying these connections,
but will likely be unable to sustain the claim because the passenger trains
will push freight operations into night time hours.