My municipality has a grade crossing which is approached by a steep grade. The steepness is such that tractor trailers can bottom out or scrape the trailer under
side in attempting to cross it. The crossing is on a former PRR spur that has been unused for decades. The most practical way to address the crossing is to eliminate the spur and then grade the street right of way. Can a citizen make the abandonment petition or must a municipality do so? Or, should the current owner, NSRR be the petitioner? Is the authority to abandon with the Surface TRansportation Board?
DOT#? is it public or private in the record? Track in or out of service? NS may not own or maintain the crossing, just have the right to operate over it…or it may be totally out of their jurisdiction.
Adverse abandonment (VIA STB) is also an option, usually the responsibility of local government. Local government is responsible (exact limits determined by state statute) for the approach grades beyond the edge of tie (2’-0") beyond the edge of rail. The local road agency is in deep for acquiessing/ allowing the approach grades to remain. AASHTO/AREMA Joint standard - decades old)
Depending on whose railroad it is now, there should be a license/contract/permit showing who owns/operates/maintains the thing. Is it valid or in breach? (highly unlikely to be found in the local courthouse)
Cerro Gordo County in Iowa (Elm Drive / Mason City… connecting to IATR) just found out the hard way that they could not change/ remove/redesign a crossing in Iowa that was privately owned and that most of the assumptions they made were totally bogus.
Has anyone actually asked or hired a qualified professional ask or investigate the status of the crossing or the track? (assuming the rubber tired locals haven’t got a clue) The state, under a longstanding MOU with the ICC/STB is responsible for the crossing safety issue - It might even order the local road agency to rebuild the approaches, given the proper conditions.
Until some basic questions are answered with facts (and not WAGs or warped opinions), nothing is going to happen.
Something is “off”.The initial post statement is hardly enough to sort out what goes here. Suspect the railroad, even CR before NS would have jumped at the opportunity of eliminating an a
Try sending a letter to Norfolk Soluthern demanding that they restore service on this vital link to commerce for your city. That should do the trick.[:-^]
The first step is to determine the status of the “spur”. Is it actually owned by a “railroad” or is it some defunct industy’s private spur track? Abandonment of a private spur track typically doesn’t require any STB approval (in fact, abandonment of a railroad owned spur track not part of a line of railroad doesn’t require any STB approval). And, if it really is a long unused private spur, I doubt if the railroad that once served it would raise any objection to its demise. Question - is there still a switch connection to an operating railroad? Railroads often eliminate switch connections to unused spurs.
'mmmmm–Maybe we could get a band of NIMBYs to band together and start a petition to require the railroad to build a grade separation? Any schools nearby? We could always add on the need to keep our children safe from undesirable elements known to frequent rail centers.
Actually, I’m more inclined to support Falcon’s suggestion. You follow that spur I suspect that you will find a missing switch. Very possibly a lead serving a defunct industry. Might have even belonged to that long gone industry, which with unpaid property tax you know where that ends up.
We had a crossing in town for a unused shortline for ages. Town finally just cut the crossing and repaved. Eventually a new company bought it and restored service - I don’t know if the town paid or the company did (they had to realign the track anyhow). But that didn’t seem to be much of a hurdle.
For what it may be worth, I think any attempt whatsover by this guy to ‘privateer’ abandonment proceedings is silly.
What he needs to do is go to his local municipal authority, raise the question of safety, and have them take up the technical and legal ramifications to get something done.
And ‘raise consciousness’ or ‘community organize’ to get awareness of the problem up and directed toward action: write letters or articles in the local press, hold meetings, contact the ATA or other agencies that might have a concern of any kind and see if they’ll participate or assist.
(You can always enlist experts to support those efforts, of course, and you’ve already gotten quite a bit of $300 per hour advice free. But without a good-enough perceived “reason to act”, don’t expect most local jurisdictions to spend scarce resources on something not ‘squeaky’ enough yet…)
There remains a switch connection. The last time it was used was in 2012 when the NSRR staged maintenance of way equipment there for nearby projects. Before 2012 Railbox cars were stored there from 2009 to 2011.
Again, DOT# - without that he is going nowhere fast and his baseline assumptions may be totally off.
Sidetracks, since 1996 are a federal concern (had been state jurisdiction), but not a usual complaint at STB. There are exceptions, notably Iowa, Wichita, Cleveland and Louisiana that did not turn out the way the complaintant expected. (the being prevented from being connected to the interstate rail network weighs large as does having a binding contract agreement.
If there is still a switch connected to the Main Track in the area - that is still a active track for the owner of the track. Not having seen anything on the track for a period of time does not mean that the track has been abandoned by the owner.
Before anything can be done - the Owner has to be ascertained.
My county has pretty extensive tax maps on-line. I realize some counties may not.
While I don’t recall it being mentioned as such, I have to suggest that next time you pass that crossing you look for a small blue sign (required for most, if not all crossings) on the crossbuck. It will have the crossing number and the responsible railroad on it.
The national crossing database is available on-line to the public. You can find out all sorts of information (like train frequency, f’rinstance) on that site.
Such background information will be handy when you pass this task off to the municipality, as has been suggested.
My presumption is the spur is privately owned or financed and does not belong to NS any longer. The other option is NS sees the utility of keeping it in place for now out of hope for future business. I suspect the former vs the latter.
If the company that used to own the rail is out of business you can get it condemned. Once ownership is removed any scrapper would come in and take the rails up and then it is just a matter of getting it formally abandoned (if it is on an easement and not on completely private property) and the grade redone by the road owner/maintainer.
I believe you only have to formally abandon rail that is on a public easement, I am just guessing though but it does make sense as nobody cares what rail is on private property. Most railroad right of ways are on public easements that have been “granted” to railroads to use exclusively by the Feds. The land cannot be released from railroad use unless it is “abandoned”. I believe “abandonment” also releases the public easement but not a real estate lawyer and only guessing again.