Ala. Code § 33-1-16

(a) The port authority may acquire, own, lease, locate, install, construct, hold, maintain, control, and operate at seaports, and at such other locations within the state as the port authority shall determine is in furtherance of promoting harbors, seaports, and riverports within the state, a line of terminal railroads with necessary sidings, turn outs, spurs, branches, switches, intermodal and multi-modal transfer facilities, yard tracks, bridges, trestles, and causeways, and in connection therewith or appurtenant thereto, shall have the further right to lease, install, construct, acquire, own, maintain, control, and use any and every kind or character of motive power and conveyances or appliance necessary or proper to carry passengers, goods, wares, and merchandise over, along, or upon the tracks of the railroads or other conveyances.

(b) The port authority may make agreements as to scale of wages, seniority, and working conditions with locomotive engineers, locomotive firemen, switchmen and switch engine foremen, and hostlers engaged in the operation of the terminal railroads provided for in this section, and the service and equipment pertinent thereto. Should the port authority exercise the power herein given, then it shall be the duty of the port authority to make such agreements with the employees hereinabove specified, in accordance with the act of Congress known as the Railway Labor Act, being 45 U.S.C.A. Section 151 et seq., as amended, or as hereafter amended, to the end that the agreements as to seniority and working conditions will obtain as to the employees and the standard rate of pay be provided as are in force relative to like employees of interstate railroads operating in the same territory with terminal railroads authorized hereby.

(c) The port authority may connect its terminal railroads with or cross any other railroad upon the payment of just compensation and may receive, deliver to, and transport the freight, passengers, and cars of common carrier railroads as though it were an ordinary common carrier.