i’m curious if railroad right of ways are even “given up”, especially in heavily populated areas where it would be difficult to establish a new right of way. I know that some right of ways are made into trails, and that someday, could be restored to railroad use.
For example, there’s a small unused line near where I live, the Millstone and New Brunswick Railroad, which was completed in 1854, and later leased for 999 years to the United Jersey Railroad Company which became the PRR and now the CSX. The right of way forms the boundaries of various properties, but i believe is still in tact.
Are there cases where developers are able to purchase a portion of a right of way from some holding company and build some structure on the property?
I’d think it would be more likely that the property would be sold piece by piece to the property owners adjoining the railroad. Sometimes a line that’s abandoned ends up going to the county or state for back property taxes - making it easier to make into a trail etc.
What the OP is referring to is who owns the “fee simple” title to the underlying land?
Does a railroad existing today still own the underlying title to the land–even if it’s now a trail? In many cases, yes.
AND
Legally speaking, the railroad has a right to someday put the tracks back in–even if there’s a hiking or biking trail there.
If the original right-of-way was only acquired as an easement, then the ownership might eventually revert to the adjoining property owners–after a certain specified period in which the railroad does not “maintain” the property.
In many cases old rail rights-of-way have been sold off to adjoining owners, or to others, through the various holding corporations.
In other cases, the rights-of-way have been maintained intact for a future day–though there may be a trail there now.
Unfortunately many land records from the era when the rail lines were originally acquired are missing, or it is very difficult for us to reproduce those boundary lines today because 100 year old landmarks cited in surveys may now be gone. Thus, any right-of-way plan for road construction along or across a railroad may become a challenge.
John Mock
consulting civil engineer, experienced with right-of-way plans.
It depends on the state and the type of ownership. In many cases if the railroad ceases to use the property for rail transportation or abandons the right of way it reverts to the adjacent land owners or the original owner. Sometimes the railroad abandons the RofW and retains ownership.
Railroads commonly sell or lease unused property or grant leases to cross their property (by pipelines, overhead wires, roads, etc).
Many times the railroad will lease but not sell the property because of the money it earns from existing leases.
For example in your example the CSX may not be able to sell the property since they don’t actually own it, they just have a 999 year lease. and whoever is successor to the original person who leased it for 999 years actually owns the property.
It probably has a lot to do with how the railroad acquired the land. Easements granted over land already owned by someone might have a provision that if the line is abandoned, the property reverts back to the original owner. An old state land grant to a railroad might stipulate that if the railroad stops using the line, it reverts back to the state government.
I know that here in Minnesota, the state statutes allow the state government to use it’s power of eminent domain to condemn and take over abandoned or unused railroad property in some situations. (By the way, searching your state’s laws for stuff on railroads can be interesting and informative. Few people know for example that here in Minnesota for the last 100 years, cabooses have to be at least 24’ long and have at least two four-wheel trucks, or that narrow-gauge common carrier railroads have been illegal since 1911, or that a railroad conductor has the power to arrest someone equal to the power of a county sheriff…which comes in handy if someone on the train is breaking the state law against drunkeness on a public form of transportation.)
A problem railroads face in not using a line is that it’s still paying property taxes on it, so I would assume if they really aren’t going to use a line ever again, they’d want to find a way to lease or sell the land rather than let it sit and be taxed by the city, county or state when it’s generating no revenue.
‘‘It all depends’’ - on the factors listed above, and sometimes and often others.
In my mind there are 2 other aspects that have not been addressed. The first is that as a former PRR property that eventually became part of CSX, the UJRC likely went through the Penn Central bankruptcy and then the ConRail ‘mill’. Almost anything could have happened then to the legal status of the title or ownership - including, I suppose, converting the 999-year lease to full ownership, or not, as the Penn Central estate, ConRail R/W staff, and U.S. Bankruptcy Court saw fit - if it had been properly abandoned.
As to that latter ‘wild card’ aspect, see the separate current posts on Page 15 of the Trackside Lounge thread about the STB recently becoming aware that CR might not have followed the proper procedures to sell off a 2-plus mile piece of the former LV main line in Docket Number EP-695-0 - CONSOLIDATED RAIL CORPORATION’S SALES AND DISCONTINUANCES, Decision No. 40429, Decided May 13, 2010, filed May 17, 2010 - DECISION ORDERED CONSOLIDATED RAIL CORPORATION (CONRAIL) TO SUBMIT A FULL EXPLANATION OF HOW AND UNDER WHAT AUTHORITY IT CAME PURPORTEDLY TO TRANSFER TITLE TO PARTS OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY MAIN LINE (THE LINE) TO NEW JERSEY TRANSIT CORPORATION. IN ADDITION, CONRAIL SHOULD EXPLAIN WHEN, UNDER WHAT AUTHORITY, AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES IT PURPORTED TO DISCONTINUE SERVICE ON THE LINE. ALSO, CONRAIL IS ORDERED TO DISCLOSE TO THE BOARD ALL OF ITS LINE OR PARTIAL LINE SALES AND ALL OF ITS DISCONTINUANCES OF SERVICE SINCE JANUARY 1, 1996, FOR WHICH NO BOARD AUTHORITY WAS SOUGHT AND NO EXEMPTION NOTICE WAS FILED ALONG WITH AN EXPLANATION OF WHY BOARD AUTHORITY WAS NOT SOUGHT AND NO EXEMPTION NOTICE WAS FILED., at -
May I add a “from across the pond question please”?
I have heard that, at least in the expansion of the RR across the middle of the US, the US Government gave land grants to the RRs which included large lumps of land both sides of the track…
So, if this is correct, who would own both the ROW and the granted land now please?
I can’t speak for the US experience, but I suspect it will be fairly similar to that in Canada.
Here much of the land grants were sold off fairly quickly, and were priced to sell. Two reasons; the first was the cash was usually badly needed to service construction debts, and the second was to develop a traffic base to support the railway. Vacant land is no help to the railway; what they wanted was population shipping farm products out and receiving incoming equipment and all the other necessities of life.
Often the railways retained the mineral rights to the land, which after the later discovery of oil proved a very profitable sideline. In some cases, especially coal, they retained complete title to particularly promising areas. They usually also kept back prime land in places that were expected to develop into major towns, until the local market was willing and able to pay prime prices.
Many now see the land grants as a massive gift to the railways but in many respects they were given next to nothing. Without the railway to provide transportation the land was effectively worthless for most purposes. A century and more later we are still reaping the benefits so it is probably the best investment in economic stimulus that the government has ever made, and certainly the cheapest.
The right-of-way itself is still owned by the railways. Although the CPR charter exempted the original main line from property taxes in perpetuity, they now pa