This whole NCRA thing makes me ill. If you don't like trains & planes and all the details of moving stuff around this country, then don't live by the tracks or an airport. I'm near both and love it.

Trains make noise & it's not just the locomotive exhaust. How about a garbage train cruising thru town in run 1 with lots of flat wheels? Engineer sees a mouse on the tracks and plugs it. Yeah, let the garbage train sit for a few hours while "I track that burst air hose down" & block crossings. Oh, I found an FRA condemnable flat spot from the emergency, I'll just set this garbage car out on this handy siding in Novato. We'll send a carman crew out soon! (lol).

" ...NCRA being another gov't agency.." and the "settling" of the lawsuit by another gov't agency. Of course it's sham. This black hole is not about running trains. If the NCRA operation were really a private profitable deal, they would tell every city to pound sand and take it up with the FRA. The FRA has procedures and very limited avenues for non-federal entities to restrict rail operations (for example the local whistle laws, very tedious & lots of items for a local gov't to comply with). IMO no RR should ever concede any rights or priveledges to anyone who isn't already in a position to enforce them.

If I ran a shortline & wanted to get along with my neighbors, I might have an informal verbal understanding with my train crews not to whistle, but stop & flag in a certain place at certain times, but I would never codify it in the rules or acknowledge it as an agreement with a town.

Any thoughts on this Shortline Sammy?

Follow the money, find the answers.