News item on railroads, land grants, current land use happenings

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/02/04/news/local/news02.prt

Railroad grant paved way for huge land holdings

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian (Missoula, Montana)

(Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com)

KALISPELL - The road runs arrow-straight, fresh blacktop laid smooth through logged-over forest, a string pulled tight between Montana’s past and its future.

At one end of the road: a hole tunneled through mountain, evidence of the railroad that once followed this same track west. At the other: a soaring rock and timber entryway, rustic chic highlighted in wrought iron.

Welcome to Meadowbrooke, a brand new Old West subdivision slowly rising in the woods west of Kalispell. That it’s being developed by the real-estate arm of Plum Creek Timber Co. is a sure sign of things to come. That its primary artery sits directly atop the old railroad bed is an indication of how things came to be.

“The past is driving the future on these lands,” said George Draffen. “If you want to understand what’s happening, you have to understand what happened.”

Draffen is a researcher and writer, co-author of “Railroads and Clearcuts,” and according to him what happened - and what’s happening - was and is the hijacking of the public trust.

“The two million acres Plum Creek started with were federal lands,” Draffen said, “public land they got for free from the citizens of the United States.”

Not surprisingly, Plum Creek president and CEO Rick Holley has a different take on history.

“Those questions were resolved long ago,” Holley said. “Our company has absolutely bought and paid for those timberlands.”

Still, it’s hard to escape the sense that

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Futuremodal, that is an interesting and well thought out article. But I am wondering, do you agree with everything that the author wrote? As I recall, you are well versed in the history of railroad land grants.

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I can’t speak knowledgeably about US roads, but the CPR and CN predecessors were given large tracts of land in exchange for the risk that the needed investors were asked to incur. CPR got 20 miles on either side of their ROW, plus an agreement that no Class 1 would operate a line between the CPR and the 49th Parallel. You could say this was a bit myopic, or rich, but don’t forget the impetus…clashes between the US and Canadians along the Great Lakes, and other fears about a strong union between the provinces. So, just as it does in any market ecomony, the price was right when the agreement was signed by both parties.

FWIW, I am in complete agreement with a judge who opines that an undertaking has not been met by either side and rules that there must be a form of penalty or restitution. We have learned that we didn’t treat the aboriginals fairly with our insistance on contracts, so we should darned well expect that our white business ethic (if you will pardon me this one time) is consistently applied over time…the passage of 10 decades is immaterial, just as it is with land grants to the aboriginals and their claims of abuse. So, if a railroad fails to deliver, as an entity and signatory to an agreement, the judge is right on to remove some of the inducement that was offered in payment.

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No. I have a favorable opinion of the land grants, as they took large tracts of land out of tax-exempt status into private taxable ownership. Local governments tend to depend on property taxes to pay for schools, et al, and those counties suffering the most are the ones with large federal land holdings within their boundaries.

I only wish all the Western railroads had been given NP-style land grants. Then we wouldn’t have to constantly deal with out-of-state rich white liberals who think that all the land between the Pacific coast ranges and the Great Plains was supposed to be their own personal playground.

As for the notion that the railroads have earned all the land they were granted - well, that’s another topic. I am quite sure Congress didn’t intend to just give all this land away so that the West would be left with a rail duopoly/regional rail monopolies who subsidize imports on the backs of captive domestic rail shippers. In my opinion, once Linda Morgan decreed that we in the West are not deserving of intramodal rail competition, that action should have negated the rest of said rail monopoly’s land holdings in the West. However, the land should go to the states who are the most negatively affected by the lack of intramodal rail competition due to Ms. Morgan’s shortsightedness, and not back to the skinflint feds.

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The RRs weren’t “given” the land. They got it in exchange for builiding the RR. Typically. in arable locations, for 10 miles on either side in the above mentioned checkerboard pattern. The day the first train ran the parcels the govt retained ownership of were more valuable than the whole lot had been w/o the RR. In addition the land grant RRs were obliged to give a frieght discount on govt shipments until after WWII. The money saved probably repaid in multples the value of the lands in 1864-1882. I’m suprise our enterprising reporter didn’t bring up the “cash” award the RRs recieved for every mile of track laid. It actually was the use of govt credit that the RRs utilized by the sale of 30 year bonds which the RRs were responsible for paying the interest on and redeeming the princple on matuaration of the bonds (which obligations the RRs fulfilled w/o defaulting). The only cost to the govt was the printing of the bonds. The whole story is told in an interesting manner by Steven Ambrose in his book “Nothing Like It In the World” which is probably available in you public library.