Cite as: 516 U. S. 152 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
"limbo time." At oral argument, the Court was advised that train employees are paid for limbo time.
We thus know how to treat the time the employee spends in the deadhead vehicle. The issue is how to classify the time the outlawed crew spends waiting for the deadhead transportation to arrive. Petitioners, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the United Transportation Union, claim the waiting time is on-duty time that counts against the 12-hour limit. Save for a short-lived period when it changed its policy to acquiesce in a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that we shall recount, the FRA for many years has taken the contrary position. In its view, so long as crew members are not required to perform duties for the railroad while they wait, time spent waiting for deadhead transportation from a duty site is to be treated in the same way as the time in the deadhead transportation itself—that is, as limbo time. 58 Fed. Reg. 18163, 18164 (1993). The railroads, who are respondents along with the Secretary of Transportation, agree with the FRA's position.
In 1990 petitioners brought suit in California and Oregon, challenging the FRA's position. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the time spent waiting for deadhead transportation from a duty site is time on duty. The court concluded that the time was so defined before Congress amended the HSA in 1969 and that the 1969 amendments disclose no intent to change that result. United Transportation Union v. Skinner, 975 F. 2d 1421, 1426-1428 (1992).
For the sake of uniformity, the FRA decided to apply the Ninth Circuit's interpretation of the HSA on a nationwide basis. It announced the policy change in an October 28, 1992, letter to Robert W. Blanchette, Vice President of the Association of American Railroads, App. 73, and later published notice in the Federal Register, 58 Fed. Reg. 18163 (1993). In response, nine major railroads instituted the
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