While off topic I am not starting a new thread for this.
Mr. Riffin's erstwhile associate has now set his sights on a line in Philadelphia, which if at all possible, has even less traffic than the Stewartstown has had since the hurricane.

http://www.stb.dot.gov/filings/all.nsf/ ... 231773.pdf

GME

(Who is having visions of a compelled service between philadelphia and Stewartstown using the now scrapped Ping-Pongs from Boonton NJ and changing gage in order to traverse the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.)

The Yahoo.com e-mail address on the letterhead really makes it look "official."

As a litigation attorney, I've encountered a pro se party (someone representing themselves) several times. Each time it has been fairly a frustrating, hair-pulling experience. I can only imagine what it is like to oppose these two clowns.

Just for amusement's sake, the PDF cited above lists the mailing address of CNJ Rail Corporation as "191 North Road, Suite 238, Dunellen, NJ". A bit of googling and maps.google.com will allow you to discover that Suite 238 is actually a 6" mailbox in in the UPS Store at 191 North Road. This giggle brought to you by a compulsive researcher who has consumed waaaaaay too much caffeine today.

Oh...and 191 North Road is a single story strip mall.

Maybe I am missing the obvious. Let's say by some miracle these guys are allowed to acquire this 2.8 mile stub and have "CNJ Rail" as a legitimate railroad company with a valid interchange with the rest of the nation's rail system. Then what? I assume there are no customers on this piece of track and I am guessing there is no reasonable chance of locating one on this line. I assume you could do the old Walter Rich trick and find someone willing to unload an insulated boxcar full of beer so you can show you have "revenue" traffic. Then what? Being able to vote at Regional and Short Line RR Association meetings? What is the payoff for them? I don't understand what the end game is here (or any of their other activities).

SO
I think the original beginning of the whole stupid thing was that JR wanted to be free of the "onerous" Baltimore County regulations requiring unpaved space (you know, the annoying ones that have helped keep the Jones Falls from wiping out the east side of Baltimore like it did every other year for the citys first 100 or so).

He discovered that by being a "railroad" the county didn't have jurisdiction, so he decided he was a railroad.

The track of this line is in much better condition than that of the Stewartstown RR being only about 34 years old, and most of it in the concrete of American Street. Maybe his Industrial Development Department wants to work with the City of Philadelphia to attract rail using industry to the adjoining brown fields and fulfill the purpose the city contemplated when the line was so completely rebuilt, including sidings and Team Track Yard, in the 1970s.

Oh, my word. Not the American Street Branch again! I was involved with a proposal from the City to take that line over in the late 1990's. There was no traffic then, and very little prospect of anything developing. Has anything changed in the last 15 years?

It should be noted that "CNJ Rail Corporation" was created, according to the New Jersey Secretary of State in 2004, but dissolved in 2007. A check with Pennsylvania and Delaware also reveals no company registered with the name "CNJ Rail Corporation."

A look at public records databases indicates that a person named "Eric Strohmeyer," sometimes using the same address, was the defendant in a number of lawsuits from various companies, including Iowa Interstate, due to his affiliation with a company called Railway Express America Corporation, which is still an active business entity. Also, there appears to be some outstanding judgments with regard to this as well.

Of course, just because someone sues you, doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Also, CNJ Rail Corporation could be incorporated in another state, such as Nevada, and it just has a primary place of business in a 6" UPS store box.

Some things are important and some things are worth noting but may not matter. I do not like the deception of calling a mail box a suite. I use a PO Box and everybody knows its a PO Box. As far as the Yahoo address - many professionals I know use the free services such as Yahoo and G Mail. Of course if your railroad has no customers and hence no revenue, free services keep you from tying up the court system by being sued for non-payment.

Years ago when I was first teaching, I had a small wills and traffic tickets practice (separate from the railroad work) which I ran out of a spare room in our house, For Fathers' Day the kids bought me an answering machine. In those days they were the size of a shoe box and had two cassette tapes. Patty, in 10th grade at the time, recorded the original outgoing message. "Hello. You have reached the Law Office of George M. Edwards. Dad's not home right now..."


The Important Things

That is the same person. He has claimed in other pleadings that the dissolution was an oversight which he rectified. There are other judgments against him and I believe that until New Hampshire changed the relevant law a few years back there was an arrest warrant issued for the deliberate non-payment of a civil judgement. My understanding is that he was trying to argue that he was not subject to the jurisdiction of the state courts because he was a railroad. He did jail time in Union County New Jersey after he refused to make good on a check which he had written against a closed account belonging to one of his non-railroads. Again he tried to claim he was exempt from the court's jurisdiction because he was a railroad. If you dig back into the Somerset Terminal saga he seems to have sold the Morristown and Erie rights he did not possess to use the tracks at and serve the Bridgewater Transfer Station. That was just the tip of the iceberg there. Then there are always the Ping Pong cars in Boonton.

With a record like that the four by six by twelve inch office suite really begins to fade in importance,

GME

If I have customers then I can get capital. If I have customers and capital then locomotives and track become easy. If I have neither customers nor capital then I will keep pleading with the board to give me a railroad.

-BANG HEAD HERE!-

(And I asked about one of the Ping-Pongs, even making an offer, never got a reply-)

I agree, the Yahoo e-mail address, or the fake "office suite" alone are not red flags, but given this individual's past, and his Riffinesque tactics, they are indications of a broader issue.



According to the New Jersey Division of Revenue's website, CNJ Rail Corporation was dissolved in 2007 and never reinstated. Then again, he could have simply reincorporated in another state, or just hasn't as it usually involves paying a fee to the state, and it doesn't appear that this guy has free access to cash, given his past history. Then again, if he's lied in his pleadings to the STB or otherwise, he might be subject to sanctions.

I counted 6-8 potential judgments against this person. Given that most of these appear to be unpaid, I doubt he has the financial ability to purchase the line.

That being said, this madness brings to mind a couple of issues, and I cannot remember if I've ever seen this answered before in these threads:

1) Who owns the Central Railroad of New Jersey trademark?
2) Is it this guy? If not, I would assume the trademark holder would consider some sort of action to enjoin the use of the trademark. It's obvious from his letterhead that he's trying to make people think he's a continuation of the real CNJ.

As an aside, I see on the STB site where in another matter, he tried to purchase a parcel from Conrail for $5.00, because Conrail had vaulted the parcel at $0 as they had already sold it to NJ transit, and thus no longer owned it. It didn't work.

I assume the endgame for this guy and Riffin is that if they own a railroad somewhere, they think that local and state laws will no longer apply to them. It's a broad reading of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, and shows an underlying misunderstanding of the legal reality, or any reality. Even if you are a corporation, an individual working for the corporation can still commit criminal or tortuous acts.

Then again, we could all be crazy and Riffin is really the last free man in America. (shudders)

Yet another bad day for Riffin is coming up. This website is offering his rail equipment for sale:

http://www.bscamerica.com/atlantic-auct ... unty-sale/

Are those remains of Hurricane Agnes near the caboose? Have its bearing and brakes been flooded while there?

I have no knowledge if there was flooding to the car, but It looks to me like the logs and other "stuff" was purposely stacked there.

He has quite a collection of railroad MOW equipment there. I bet Stewartstown could have utilized that equipment....

How did this guy end up with CSX Baltimore Terminal's commemorative "shoving platform"?