The U.S. Supreme Court case Chicago & North Western Railway Co. v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Co., et al., 1964 revolved around a dispute between two railroad companies over the use of terminal facilities in Chicago's Union Station and related trackage rights under an agreement dating back to 1910. The plaintiff, the Chicago & North Western Railway Company (CNW), sought to prevent the defendant, the Milwaukee Road from using certain tracks and facilities that CNW claimed were exclusively its own according to their interpretation of said agreement. The lower court ruled in favor of CNW but on appeal, this decision was reversed by the Supreme Court which held that both railroads had equal rights to use these disputed facilities based on their shared historical usage patterns and provisions within their longstanding contractual relationship.

In the dissenting opinion for Chicago & North Western Railway Co. v. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Co., it was argued that the majority's decision to allow a railroad company to abandon its line without state approval undermined states' rights and threatened public interests in maintaining transportation services. The dissenters believed that federal law did not preempt state regulation of railroads as completely as the majority suggested, pointing out that Congress had historically allowed states significant leeway in regulating local aspects of interstate commerce such as rail service abandonment decisions. They also contended that allowing unilateral abandonment by carriers could lead to sudden disruptions in essential services with serious consequences for communities dependent on those services.