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The United States Congress embarked on a new era in the regulation of interstate commerce when it created the Interstate Commerce Commission ("ICC") in 1887 to regulate railroad traffic.' A major purpose of the ICC regulatory framework, as amended by the Transportation Act of 1920, was to preempt actions by state and local authorities that prevented railroads from abandoning unprofitable lines. When Congress passed the Transportation Act, 252,588 miles of track criss-crossed the United States; by 1990 the number of rail- way miles had decreased by almost half. Although the relative ease with which railroads abandoned unprofitable lines augmented their profitability, state and local governments realized that corridors assembled in the mid-nineteenth century were extremely expensive to reassemble once abandoned. Local authorities began considering other public uses for railroad rights-of-way, such as roads or highways, the placement of utility lines, or recreational trails. In an effort to conserve railway corridors as a national resource, both for future transportation use and for current use as recreational trails, Congress included unique provisions within the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 ("4-R Act") and the National Trails Systems Act Amendments of 1983 ("Rails-to-Trails Act"). Specifically, the Rails-to-Trails Act asserted federal control over the disposition of abandoned railroad rights-of-way and promoted alternative uses for railway corridors. The abandonment of rail service on a railway line requires the approval of the Surface Transportation Board ("STB"), the successor to the ICC. Until the STB grants such approval, the railway line is considered part of the national transportation system. The requirement of STB approval can present a direct conflict with state property law. What is the result when a railroad right-of-way, held by the railroad in the form of an easement, has purportedly been abandoned under state property law before the STB has given permission to abandon ...

The polarization of political parties in the United States is a well-documented phenomenon. This paper considers polarization of the judicial branch and relates it to the evolution of the parties. In this paper we define polarization specifically as movement from a modal distribution (of votes, attitudes, or decisions) to a bimodal distribution along a liberal-conservative spectrum over time. Using data compiled from 90,000 United States District Court decisions published in the Federal Supplement between 1934 and 2008, we find that the judiciary began to polarize in the 1960s and has remained polarized. We consider a number of competing explanations for the polarization of the district courts, including a top-down view that emphasizes presidential power and a bottom-up view that focuses on the sorting of elites that form the pool of potential judges.