(The following story by Rochelle Olson appeared on the Minneapolis Star Tribune website on June 4.)
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — A state law passed to make trains slow down from 60 to 30 miles per hour as they pass through Orr in northeastern Minnesota is constitutional, a federal judge ruled Monday.
“The time involved in traveling through Orr at 30 [miles per hour] is not much greater than traveling through Orr at 60 [miles per hour]. Thus … the special law is not an impermissible burden on interstate commerce,” U.S. District Judge Michael Davis wrote.
Canadian National Railway challenged the 2005 state law on several grounds, including that it violated the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The clause bars state legislation if it discriminates against interstate commerce or creates an excessive burden.
Canadian National Railway argued that federal law, which allows trains to go up to 60 miles per hour, should supersede the state law.
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson defended the state law after the railroad sued, saying that local governments can pass laws based on local safety concerns.
A train derailment — the second in two years — provided Orr residents with a new example of concerns about Canadian National trains, some of which carry hazardous cargo. As a train whistled in the background Monday, Brian Bruns, co-chairman of the Orr Rail Safety Committee and owner of a grocery in town, said he’s “very happy” with the ruling.
If a car derails, “we feel at 30 miles per hour, we have a better chance of having those tanker cars stay intact rather than having it leak,” Bruns said. “I’m hoping they’re going to comply” rather than appeal.
Each day, 15 to 20 trains pass through Orr within 150 feet of the high school football field, a playground, a fire station, propane tanks and the business district. In the most recent crash, no one was hurt, but 14 of the 91 cars derailed.
Most of them were empty, but one carried flammable gas residue.
Orr, a town of 265 residents about 55 miles southeast of International Falls, has coexisted with the railway for nearly a century, relying on it to carry lumber, people and goods.
The tracks run along Hwy. 53 through the middle of town, which lies on the shore of Pelican Lake. A spokesman for the railway did not return calls.