This is one that bears watching.

Apparently Creede, CO has lost patience with the D&RGW historical foundation regarding the one mile of track preserved for museum use, and filed an adverse abandonement with it in front of the STB, in order to convert it to trail use.

The STB is just defining the field of battle at the moment, but in a case where the line was never fully abandoned, but transferred to the Foundation, and the City wants the ROW, this has ended up in front of the STB and sounds testy. This is another unfortunate possible precedent-setting case where the community would rather rip up track to make a trail rather than developing the rail asset as an attraction and possibly an economic tool.

It's only one mile long, but this bears watching by railroad museum operations.

http://www.stb.dot.gov/decisions/readin ... enDocument

My opinion...
The battle between the city and the historical society has been going on for some time. The city continues to lose, and each time they do, they file from another approach. The mayor and others in power in Creede REALLY want the property for themselves so they can develop it. I doubt if they will ever make a trail, unless it is in the front of THEIR commercial property.

You aso have the NIMBY issue in Creede. They are afraid of becomming another Durango. I doubt that will ever happen.

The worse thing in a situation like this is the cost of the fight whether you are in the right or not. I hope the group has a friendly low or no cost lawyer to file all these documents for them.

David Farlow

With all the equipment sitting on a siding at Monte Vista you would think that every item needed for a short line operation was in place. Ballast and clearing seemed to be the only requirement holding up operations (other than clearing that short piece I think that has been blocked). Why no action in 7 years? In 7 years you could hold enough "Garage Sales" to fund track rehab. What is the real burr under everyone's saddle?

DRGHF, no "W"(estern).

Greede (sic) is a sick town and a strong backer of the proposed 10,000 person Village at Wolf Creek Pass. They would get the taxes but not the problems.

South Fork and Pagosa Springs would get the problems but not the taxes.

Roger

Randy,

Back me up if I am wrong, but isn't Creede putting up a circular argument? I believe that DRGHF has not been able to take posession and improve their right of way because the city is squatting on the right of way with a municipal parking lot, etc.; but they make the argument that they should get adverse abandonment because the DRGHF has not done anything to the land in 8 years.

Steve

So this is like the person that was convicted of killing the parents and then asks the judge go easy because he was now an orphan! I know that higher elevations affect a person's breathing but does it also alter reality?

Out of curiosity can they steal it with eminent domain????

Google "Eminent Domain Abuse" and you can read some real horror stories.

Here's one that really is terrible that happened down the road from where I am;
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/emi ... iction.htm

Then there is the case that started it all, in New London Ct. google Kelo v. New London

tons of stuff will come up.


I suppose that unless railroads some how fall under different laws, with Eminent domain, now the way it is, all a greedy person needs to do is seek out a parcel of land, run for mayor, and steal it!!!!! All the while undervaluing it by a factor of 4-5 when they hand the money over to the owner.

Rather amazing that in America, home of the Free that a private individual's land could be stolen by a guy who proves he could make more money on it. Surly if a farm could be stolen, cause some one thought they could enjoy it more as a public park, or a housing development stolen by a developer who wants to redevelop it, I could see this fate scarily hitting enthusiast groups soon.

I am not saying Eminent domain to build say a road or railroad should be prohibited, however in the city I live in for example, the university wants to steal the most prime realestate from a privately held college bookstore and then make a new bookstore, which they will rent out to a company eFollett who they have a exclusivity arrangement with. Who knows perhaps this mayor or one of his council men have already claimed this little railroad puppy as their own.

I believe I read some time back that Creede tried the eminent domain approach early on, but failed. I think it had to do with the status of the ROW with the FRA. Can't remember the details.

I am not “train lawyer” nor do I play one on TV, with that said…

A railroad’s status as a part of the national transportation system makes it immune to most local efforts of regulation and especially to any claim of imminent domain.

Near me, a local government commuter rail operation has been having problems with a large interstate railroad. At least one board member proposed imminent domain to take the tracks in question, then giving the freight railroad trackage rights controlled by the dispatchers of the commuter rail line as one solution… Their (the commuter railroad) lawyers (expensive and good) have told them that this is legally impossible. Even when maintaining the railroad use. The federal protections would take precedent over any local action.

In this case it looks like the local government is first trying to get the line abandoned, which would remove the protections offered if it is part of the national railroad system.

By the way, we moderators would frown on this discussion if it moves towards a rant about imminent domain abuse, away from railroad issues.

How about if this moderator (of other forums, mind you) and editor tells you that it's "eminent domain", not "imminent"?? >;-)

Yep, that's exactly what's going on - for the last mile of track only, not the entire line. This is the part of the line that actually enters the town, stopping at the former depot/current museum. This is just the latest salvo in an ongoing attempt by the city of Creede to keep the RR out.

This initial ruling is very preliminary stuff and doesn't really indicate where all of this will eventually go. I'm no RR lawyer either, but having followed this for a while, it appears that things went pretty much the RR's way in this first ruling of this latest round. They objected to two exemptions to filing requirements that the city was asking for in its attempt to file for adverse abandonment, and the board upheld both of those objections.

Now the city has more work to do, including gathering some information from the RR, probably through discovery. Will the additional work deter them from continuing? Will one party or the other run out of patience, money or will and give up? The city's lost every battle so far, but may still end up winning the war due to attrition.

The saga continues.

Scott

Devils advocate here - but what do the railroaders need to do to start running trains, even if just to demonstrate the unabondoned nature of the tracks? Seems many years have gone by, probably locals know what progress they have made, but apart from the questionable decision to import a FEC light pacific what have they done to demonstrate their ability to actually produce? I'm in the business and their status is a mystery to me.

dave

FWIW, I really haven't been involved in the background at all of this one, but I do follow STB decisions on about a daily basis. I'm in no way involved with the outcome, but any time the STB gets involved with railroad museums, its heads up for everybody, and that's the point here.

I take particular focused interest in any adverse abandonments because of the potential impacts on shortline railroad creation, corridor preservation, railbanking, and railroad museums or excursion railroads that aren't necessarily part of the general system, or a fuzzy part. That's really the point of this thread... if you follow the logic on this one it's a warning.

This isn't the first time, or the last time, that an anti-railroad faction will discover the intricacies of STB law, when an 'abandoned' railroad isn't really abandoned, and the exact procedure that has to be followed. The current popular arguements to 'short circuit' abandonments by designating them a trail protected under interim trail use is most interesting (and alarming, when the track is still there). Another one out there that's really interesting is the one in New York City where Conrail even sold the railroad ROW to developers thinking it HAD been properly abandoned, and now the trail interest are trying to reverse the abandonment by procedural error and have it declared 'not abandoned' so the corridor can be converted back to a public trail and interim trail use. Meanwhile, there's supposedly buildings on the ROW now, not sure how that will play out - tear them back down?

These adverse ones also tend to be some of the most heavily contested, vitriolic, and stretched-out proceedings of them all. I suppose it's either follow these or take a home-study Latin course.

Randy,

Isn't this the same railroad that has 30 plus miles of auto rack or flat cars stored there?

How much would it take roughly to fix the line?

Just curious,

JD Johnson, Morehead and North Fork Railroad Historian