The city of Palestine was a railroad town if there ever was one.
Palestine is a midpoint between Dallas, Houston, and Shreveport. In 1872, the town raised bonds worth over $5 million in today’s dollars for a railroad company that would become Union Pacific. In exchange, the company pledged to build a depot and workshops in the town, and remain there “forever and thereafter.”
The City of Palestine and Anderson County have been trying to hold Union Pacific to that pledge, since in the present day, the railroad has designs on leaving the town altogether. But the final chance to make their case may have already come and gone
Amber Gaudet, transportation reporter for the Dallas Morning News, spoke to Texas Standard about the history of the agreement and the current court fight. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: First, describe how big of a deal Union Pacific’s been in Palestine over the years.
Amber Gaudet: I mean, you know, this has always been a rail town. They employed at one point over a thousand rail workers.
Something that I heard from officials is these are some of the highest paying jobs left in Anderson County, which has a per capita income of $23,000. You know, these rail jobs typically pay around $50-$60,000 from what they’ve told me. And, you know, this is one of the top 20 employers in the city of Palestine.
So, you know, officials say this closure would really hurt the local economy because railroad jobs have always been the lifeblood of the town. And Palestine’s really built its reputation around being a rail town.
I visited a few months ago and there are signs of the railroad on pretty much every street. So, you know, railroad theme parks, little caboose is in front of the businesses signifying membership in the in the Chamber of Commerce there. So, I mean, people there who their family has worked for Union Pacific for generations really can’t imagine it being anything else.
Part of the identity of the town, it sounds like. So why is Union Pacific so keen to leave Palestine? And where would it go?
Yeah, they’ve been fighting for years to close the freight rail repair shop there. They say that they have to send their rail cars thousands of miles out of the way for repair there and that the shop is severely outdated.
And so this is just a business decision at the end of the day. Their argument in court has been that this jobs pact restricts interstate commerce, which is preempted by federal law that was passed after the contract was signed.
And, you know, so far the courts have agreed with that decision, at least the last ruling in the case the county was trying to fight by asking the Texas Supreme Court to agree to hear the case again. But that was denied last week.
Well, you said “jobs package.” I was struck by the language of the company promising to build a depot and have workshops, stay there forever and thereafter. That sounds pretty unambiguous here.
Yeah. You know, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these shop agreements were actually pretty common, especially among railroads. Some of them still exist today – not just in Texas, but in other states across the nation. Some of these still exist.
But as rail started to decline and we had the Great Depression, widespread adoption of automobile, the airplane, things like that… Then rail companies started dropping passenger service. And, you know, a lot of them filed for bankruptcy.
So these jobs pacts just kind of fell by the wayside. And this is, I guess, one of the last vestiges of that.
Well, now I understand that the Texas Supreme Court recently declined to hear this case between Palestine and Union Pacific. Does that mean that the city has run out of ways to compel Union Pacific to stay in town?
So the county has one avenue left. They can petition the court for a rehearing, which their attorney has said they will do within 30 days.
But those pleas rarely succeed. And if the court denies that motion, then there are no avenues left and Union Pacific can close that shop.
If Union Pacific pulls out of Palestine, does that mean an end to the relationship altogether?
Well, you know, Union Pacific will still run trucks through the town, which the critics in Palestine have said that if the railroad is going to continue to use the land there, then they should either honor its promise or give that land back.
Is there any timeline here? Do we know what the next foot to drop might be?
So like I mentioned, the attorneys said that they plan to file that motion for rehearing within about 30 days. And then there is no specific deadline for the court to make a decision.
But on average, they usually take about 60 days to rule on those petitions for rehearing. If they decide against that, at that point, Union Pacific could close it the same day theoretically, although they haven’t given a specific timeline.
