Passenger Trains > Brightline Confession, I stand corrected

The AAF’s Brightline tracks are within the 25’-30’ distance from the rail lines of interstate commerce so they cannot be considered insular.  Please void my use of that word in the 10/21/16 to 10/24/16 reply to AmtrakBill and I want to thank Mr. G. B. Mott and others for their educational series of reviews and posts of the FRA jurisdiction question.
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 I now correct my understanding that once the FRA declares jurisdiction over a line in the general interconnected lines of commerce, that jurisdiction does not change when the temporal separation status changes daily from Rapid Transit to freight carrier.  [San Diego Trolley and NJ Transit’s River Line continue under FRA as some examples] I thought it did change because I had experienced the Lincoln Branch of the Boston & Maine RR in New Hampshire where the railroad leased the line from Plymouth to Lincoln in the 1920s to the Woodstock Lumber Co. so they could run log trains between Lincoln and Beebe River.  They ran Shay powered trains with 4-wheel logging bunk cars and homemade 8-wheel trash carrying cars all without any air-brakes and not safety-appliance legal.  The B&M did require that the Shay were ICC inspected even though the Safety Appliance Act has an exemption: “Locomotives used exclusively for lumber service:  Exempt”.  The lease covered each night and on Sunday so the Woodstock Lumber Co. moved large logs off the EB&L RR to Beebe River sawmill to cut for piano boards, and returned to Lincoln with loads of sawmill waste to burn in the boilers of the paper mill at Lincoln.  I now learn the ICC jurisdictional over the B&M track did not change account of the temporal separation by the lease, but the application of some rules only changed account the line was removed from the General Interconnected Lines of Commerce. In effect that made the B&M’s Lincoln Branch part of the Woodstock Lumber Company, at that time nearly 70 miles of total trackage with BR RR and EB&L RR on each end.  The rules for air-brakes and safety appliances were exempt because that was industry and not interstate commerce.
 
I only began my reply to AmtrakBill as I had seen the Amtrak exclusion within the Surface Board’s decision to dismiss, and thought I would help, thinking in error that the temporal separation also changed the FRA jurisdiction as they do not usually cover Rapid Transit.  What I do now read is that the AAF line from Cocoa to Orlando along the BEE line highway may not be included into the jurisdiction of the FRA and would come under the FTA as being Rapid Transit. The FRA is not automatically required to take jurisdiction of a line account of statutory law but they only assume jurisdiction by their choice, case by case.

I still believe the Brightline service will be with employees that are not covered by the Railway Labor Act and may not be included into the Railroad Retirement System as not being railroad employees but I could be wrong.  The Brightline trains will not be run by the Florida East Coast Railway employees and Mr. Mott was correct that the FRA will cover the entire line from Miami to Cocoa and be involved whenever any Brightline train broadsides a bus on any public crossing, dread the thought. Thanks for hanging on for the wild ride.

For more on common use rail corridors if you want to further review, 130 pages with maps:
http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/42000/42300/42377/ord0316.pdf