That is certainly related to the "main question" - can SMART enforce a contract that says that the way they want to interpret it? But it's not what the 10/20 action was about - denying a preliminary injunction because there's a workaround for the immediate issue (the cars that aren't at Schellville yet) doesn't imply any particular answer regarding the contract itself. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if STB eventually does go along with SMART, but they have to think on it a bit more to work out the precedents that could be established.

Really, it's like the oil train debacles. The refineries want to add capacity to handle bigger oil trains (most can already handle some cars, just not 100s); they argue interstate commerce; but it isn't, it's a local impact issue (direct effect) that in California expands due to CEQA to cover a wider area alongside the likely transportation routes (cumulative effect). Some local agencies ignore all of that (there are ways to do that in CEQA; just be prepared to defend it in court) because they want the jobs and tax revenues (improvements increase property value, which increases taxes). Others decide they're willing to forego it (Benicia and SLO, recently; don't worry, they'll be sued for saying "No" too) for environmental impact reasons. Whatever SMART's reasons are for their part of this mess (NWP isn't blameless, circumstantially), they can easily play it in the second category.