(a) A municipal port authority shall have the power and authority to acquire, own, lease, locate, install, construct, equip, hold, maintain, control, and operate at harbors, ports, and river-rail and barge terminals a line of terminal railroads with necessary sidings, turn outs, spurs, branches, switches, yard tracks, bridges, trestles, and causeways; and in connection therewith and 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 appliances necessary or proper to carry passengers, goods, wares, and merchandise over, along, or upon the tracks of the railroads or other conveyances.
(b)
(1) The authority shall have the right and authority to make agreements as to scale of wages, seniority, and working conditions with locomotive engineers, locomotive firemen, switchmen, switch engine foremen, and hostlers engaged in the operation of the terminal railroads provided for in this section, and the service and equipment pertinent to them.
(2) Should the authority exercise the power given in this section, then, in such event, it shall be the duty of the authority to make such agreements with the employees specified, in accordance with the act of Congress known as the Railway Labor Act, as amended, to the end that the same agreements as to seniority and working conditions will obtain as to the employees and that 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 by this section.
(c) The authority shall have the right and power with its terminal railroads to connect with or cross any other railroad upon payment of just compensation and to receive, deliver to, and transport the freight, passengers, and cars of common carrier railroads as though it were an ordinary common carrier.