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Yesterday, the Surface Transportation Board addressed seven cases at an open voting conference in Washington, D.C.

Among the five cases pertaining to the railroad industry, board members voted unanimously to:
• deny Railroad Ventures Inc.'s (RVI) petition to reopen an offer of financial assistance proceeding regarding the sale and proposed abandonment of a line in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Members also granted a motion by line purchasers Columbiana County Port Authority and Central Columbiana & Pennsylvania Railway Inc. requiring RVI to show whether funds the STB ordered to be transferred as a condition to the line's forced sale were spent according to board conditions;
• dismiss a rate case against Burlington Northern Santa Fe because evidence submitted by utilities Arizona Public Service Co. and PacifiCorp on the impending shutdown of a coal mine near Gallup, N.M., affects the stand-alone cost analysis the STB adopted previously and vacates a previously prescribed rate;
• make technical corrections to a prior decision addressing Public Services Co. of Colorado's (d/b/a Xcel Energy) challenge of BNSF's rates to move coal from the Powder River Basin to an electric generating plant near Brush, Colo.;
• instruct Otter Tail Power Co. and BNSF to file supplemental evidence to enable board members to analyze traffic-group issues raised in a rate complaint case; and
• begin a proceeding to determine the railroad industry's cost of capital for 2004.