BISMARCK -- The "quiet rail" bill to fund cities' special railroad crossings and halt loud train horns passed the Senate overwhelmingly Monday. The vote was 39-6.
Senate Bill 2338 contains $2.5 million that cities could seek through a grant program. Most of the money--$1.6 million--comes from diesel fuel taxes that railroads pay into the state highway fund. The other $900,000 comes from federal safety funds the Transportation Department receives.
On Friday, the bill had failed by a single vote, 23-19. Bills need 24 votes in the Senate to pass. There are 47 senators.
Sen. David Nething, R-Jamestown, the bill's prime sponsor, was absent Friday. That allowed him to ask Monday that Friday's action be reconsidered. He reminded senators that they had passed an even more generous version of the bill--containing $6.4 million--earlier in the session, and that four separate legislative committees had approved the bill.
Nething said after Monday's that he wasn't content to merely make the motion on the floor, but instead had lobbied his colleagues to gain their support.
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"I talked to a whole bunch of people," he said.
The bill as passed by the Senate Monday is the version the House approved recently, in which the funding was decreased. The bill now goes to the governor.
The quiet rail crossings are ones at which special, very expensive, crossing arms are built to ensure both vehicles and people can't get on the tracks when a train is approaching a crossing.
Once they are built, the railroads are allowed by federal rules to dispense with sounding the deafening air horns as they approach those crossings.
People from several cities around the state--including Jamestown, Bismarck, Mandan and Medora--had testified for the bill.
