Hines spent nearly ten years fighting railroad regulation in state and federal courts.

Hines joined the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway as general counsel, was made chair of the executive committee in 1908 and chairman of the board in 1916.

McAdoo resigned in January, 1919, and Hines stepped in as director general for the remainder of nationalization under the Railroad Administration, which ended on March 1, 1920.

[2] Following the end of World War I, Hines worked and traveled extensively in Europe.

In the latter half of the 1920s, Hines was a director of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, a director of its subsidiary, the Colorado and Southern Railway, general counsel of one of its parent companies, the Great Northern Railway, and a partner in Hines, Rearick, Dorr, Travis and Marshall, which specialized in railroad law.