Storage Incidental to Transportation

This is in response to your letter of March 5, 1999, requesting clarification of the Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR; 49 CFR Parts 171-180). Specifically, you ask whether the following scenario would be considered "storage incidental to transportation." You state that a National railroad company operates a "switching yard" where railcars are unhooked from the locomotive and moved into a side yard to await the next leg of transportation to their final destination. You also state that the railcars are waiting temporarily in the switching yard from minutes to a few days and are covered by a through bill of lading while they remain in the switching yard.

Based on the above scenario, the answer is yes. "Storage incidental to transportation" means any temporary storage that may occur between the time a hazardous material is offered for transportation to a carrier until it reaches its intended destination and is accepted by the consignee. This would include temporary storage of a shipment during this time period at a carrier's terminal, consolidation, or storage facility, or on a dock area waiting for loading. That is, if a shipment is consigned to the end user of the hazardous material at the time the shipment is offered for transportation, most storage between offering and delivery to the end user is temporary storage. If the shipment is consigned by the offerer to a storage facility rather than to end user, then the shipment is out of transportation once received and unloaded at the storage facility.

We are currently reviewing the applicability of the HMR to certain transportation-related, activities, such as storage of hazardous materials, under a supplemental advance notice of proposed rule making (SANPRM) published under Docket HM-223,entitled "Applicability of the Hazardous Materials Regulations to Loading, Unloading and Storage". The SANPRM is available for viewing on the Internet at http://dms.dot.gov under RSPA Docket No. 98-4952.