Then their attorney stood up and put three things on the bench, each one heavier than the last. The first was the letter, the original state rail division letterhead, and I heard the clerk’s chair creak as she leaned to see it. The second was resolution 22-14 of the Kelso County Board of Commissioners, adopted the previous spring, vacating the portion of the historic rail corridor lying within the platted entrance of Foxglove Crossing Estates. Adopted, recorded, published. Ware had never seen it, neither had I.
The third was a sworn affidavit from Karen attaching association minutes stating that no train had operated on the line for five consecutive months, and that the community had reasonably relied on the corridor being defunct. I watched Amboy read all three, and I watched his face do nothing at all.
Then he took his glasses off and looked at Ware, and he was not unkind about it. “Counsel, I’m going to stop you. Whether a rail line has been abandoned isn’t a question I get to answer. It isn’t a state question. It has never been a state question. You’re in the wrong courthouse.” Ware said, “Your Honor, the deed—” “The deed isn’t in dispute. Nobody’s told me Mr. Pennington doesn’t own the dirt. What’s in dispute is whether there’s a railroad on it, and that determination sits with the federal regulator, and I don’t have the authority to make it or to unmake it.” He set the glasses down. “Petition dismissed without prejudice for whatever that’s worth to you today.”
Karen did not smile. That’s the thing I remember. She opened her leather folder and put her copies away one at a time, squaring the edges like a woman clearing dishes.
It got worse in the parking lot. Ike called before I made it to the truck, and I could hear him not wanting to say it. “Porter, the general counsel’s putting an embargo on your spur. An embargo effective today. We’re not moving equipment onto that track until the obstruction’s resolved.” He blew out a breath. “There’s a concrete footing on our right-of-way and a county resolution that says the crossing’s been vacated. I’ve got a lawyer telling me that if we shove a train down there and something happens, the railroad eats it. I fought it. I lost.”
I stood in that lot in a January wind and did the math. An embargo is not a lawsuit. It has no hearing, no appeal, and nothing to argue with. It is a decision by the only railroad on earth that can serve me, that it will not serve me.
Blue Ledge called eleven days later. Not the scheduler. A vice president, very polite, wanting to confirm whether Pennington intended to perform on forty cars before May first. And if there was any question about performance, they’d need to source elsewhere while capacity was still available. I told him we intended to perform. “Porter, I’ve known your family a long time. Don’t tell me that if it isn’t true.” I told him it was true because the alternative was watching it end on a telephone.