Cite as: 507 U. S. 658 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
Moreover, as found by the District Court, when Cartersville scotched the plans for the Cook Street gate, "the funds earmarked for this crossing were . . . transferred to other projects. The decision to install gate arms at the Cook Street crossing was placed on a list of projects to be considered at a later time." 742 F. Supp., at 678. In light of the inapplicability of §§ 646.214(b)(3) and (4) to these cases, we conclude that respondent's grade crossing claim is not pre-empted.12
III
Federal regulations issued by the Secretary pursuant to FRSA and codified at 49 CFR § 213.9(a) (1992) set maximum allowable operating speeds for all freight and passenger trains for each class of track on which they travel. The different classes of track are in turn defined by, inter alia, their gage, alinement, curvature, surface uniformity, and the number of crossties per length of track. See §§ 213.51-213.143. The track at the Cook Street crossing is class four, for which the maximum speed is 60 miles per hour. Although respondent concedes that petitioner's train was traveling at less than 60 miles per hour,13 she nevertheless contends that petitioner breached its common-law duty to operate its train at a moderate and safe rate of speed. See, e. g., Central of Georgia R. Co. v. Markert, 200 Ga. App. 851, 852; 410 S. E. 2d 437, 438, cert. denied, 200 Ga. App. 895 (1991). Petitioner contends that this claim is pre-empted because the federal speed limits are regulations covering the subject matter of the common law of train speed.
12 We reject petitioner's claim of implied "conflict" pre-emption, Brief for Petitioner in No. 91-790, pp. 40-43, on the basis of the preceding analysis. Of course we express no opinion on how the state-law suit against the railroad should come out in light of the decisions taken by Cartersville and the Georgia DOT with respect to the Cook Street project.
13 Affidavits submitted by the parties indicate that the train was moving at a rate of 32 to 50 miles per hour.
673
Page: Index Previous 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007