Sec. 172.001. DEFINITIONS

In this chapter:

(1) "Board" means a district's board of directors.

(2) "Bonds" means:

(A) bonds;

(B) notes, including bond anticipation notes, revenue anticipation notes, and grant anticipation notes;

(C) warrants;

(D) certificates of obligation;

(E) interest-bearing contracts;

(F) interest-bearing leases of property;

(G) equipment trust certificates;

(H) commercial paper; and

(I) any obligation issued to refund any type of bond.

(3) "Director" means a board member.

(4) "District" means a rural rail transportation district created under this chapter or under Chapter 623, Acts of the 67th Legislature, Regular Session, 1981 (Article 6550c, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), as that chapter existed before April 1, 2011.

(5) "Maintenance facility" includes a workshop, a service, storage, security, or personnel facility, temporary or transient lodging for district employees, and equipment for any type of facility.

(6) "Maintenance and operating expenses" means all expenses of operating and maintaining a district and its rail facilities, including:

(A) all compensation, labor, materials, repairs, and extensions necessary, required, or convenient in the board's discretion to render efficient service or to maintain and operate the district; and

(B) taxes or other amounts paid, payable, or to be paid to the United States under Section 148(f), Internal Revenue Code of 1986, or any similar law.

(7) "Rail facilities" means:

(A) property, or an interest in that property, that the board determines is necessary or convenient to provide a rural rail transportation system; and

(B) property or an interest necessary or convenient to acquire, provide, construct, enlarge, remodel, renovate, improve, furnish, use, or equip the system, including:

(i) a right-of-way;

(ii) an earthwork or structure, including clearing and grubbing of right-of-way, demolition of a structure, relocation of utilities, a pipeline, or any other obstacle in a right-of-way, stripping and stockpiling, removal of subsoil for embankment or spoil, a borrow pit, dressing and seeding of a slope, construction of a culvert, a road crossing, a bridge, restoration of a roadway, drainage within a right-of-way or along a road network, and restoration of a hydrologic system;

(iii) trackwork;

(iv) a train control, including signalling, interlocking equipment, speed monitoring equipment, an emergency braking system, a central traffic control facility, and a communication system;

(v) a passenger or freight service building, terminal, or station, a ticketing facility, a waiting area, a platform, a concession, an elevator, an escalator, a facility for handicapped access, an access road, a parking facility for passengers, a baggage handling facility, a local maintenance facility, and offices for district purposes and includes an interest in real property necessary or convenient for an item listed under this subparagraph;

(vi) rolling stock; and

(vii) a maintenance facility.

(8) "Revenue" means the income, receipts, and collections received by, to be received by, or pledged to the district from or by any source, except a restricted gift or a grant in aid of construction.

(9) "Right-of-way" means:

(A) a right of passage over property;

(B) a strip of land in length and width determined required, necessary, or convenient by the board over, on, or under which trackwork is or is to be constructed or acquired; or

(C) a right of precedential passing.

(10) "Rolling stock" means a locomotive, an engine, a rail car, a repair construction car, or another car designed to operate on trackwork.

(11) "Trackwork" means track, a track bed, track bed preparation, a tie, a rail fastener, a slab, a rail, an emergency crossover, a setout track, storage track, and a switch.

Added by Acts 2009, 81st Leg., R.S., Ch. 85 , Sec. 2.04, eff. April 1, 2011.