Of those who own railroads or work with those who do:

What is contemporary practice regarding the granting of easements or crossing licenses to people who need an access road across trackage? What does your museum do? To the best of your knowledge, what's contemporary practice for the Class I's?

In Canada, at least, private crossings are granted with an annual rent fee and likely maintenance fees too. Using CB&CNS as an example, these fees can be quite high and unpopular...

Steve Hunter
RMEO

You are going to need a crossing agreement or lease. Among the things specified in such an agreement will be the annual rental fee, all maintaince fees, insurance requirements, crossing surface, and crossing protection. These agreememts can vary greatly depending on the type of crossing, single home residential, subdivision, or comercial. If the crossing is more than a farm or single home residential crossing I storngly suggest you require a full installation of lights and gates with the costs of installation and maintaince being the owners responsibility. Even crossings between farm fields require crossbucks.

One thing you need to be sure and do is require liability insurance be kept by the owner of the crossing and proven to the railroad annually. To the extent you can, you need to be sure the owner assumes as much liability as possible. I have seen agreements where the owner of the crossing was responsible for all accidents regardless of who was at fault. Other agreements make the owner responsible for sight lines so drivers can see the trains. This can be expecially helpful if the ROW is narrow and brush or homeowner plantings interfer with seeing the train.

Remember that the railroad almost always has nothing benificial to gain from another crossing and the potential for loss is greatly increased. If there is other access to the area in question you really need to push for not having a crossing at all. If the owner is persistant try and make the cost of the crossing prohibitive. It helps to be a common carrier when dealing with new crossings. In any case, you may well need to consult a lawyer. The money you spend could be paid back many fold should the unthinkable ever happen at that crossing.

John Bohon

DON'T ! period. Make them find another way. For over 15 years we have been trying to eliminate all of the illeagal ones on our line. It has got ugly.
All of the requirments Mr. Bohon listed have to be there and don't forget drainage. Most farmers think they can just fill the ditch dump some dirt in the gauge and there they go. We have found this done in the week between when we run. (more than once). usally telling them what is involved makes them rethink it but... We have had people fight it in court. These people thought we owed it to them.
We ended up buying thier land lock property just to stop the legal bleeding.
In another istance we had a legal one with all of the above listed stipulations in place and after a period of years it needed repair. Well in the mean time the farmer died, his estate was tied up in court, the new out of town owners could not be reached. What were we to do? In the end it was cheaper for us to repair it so we could pass over it safely than fight in court. Past issues have tought us if we would have ripped it out the owner would have magically appeared and we would have been back in court.
Back to my orginal statement. DON'T DO IT.
One more little word of advice. If the railroad starts the legal action, The farmers insurance pays for his legal cost while you pay for yours. They will then try and bleed you into submission.

Prevent the opening of unnecessary crossings as mentioned above if possible. However, some state laws require the railroad to permit a private crossing to be installed pursuant to applicable statutes and requirements cited by Mr. Bohon. Many states require the railroad to permit a private crossing between farm fields if certain requirements are met (mostly distance from roads-reasonable access requirements). The key is to know the applicable law in your jurisdiction.

If you have the option, do an agreement or a license -- not an easement. An agreement or a license can be have a time-length or have cancellation clause nature while an easement creates a permanent right (until released by the grantee).

At work I deal with water pipeline easements, fee held property, and railroad agreements. Every location our pipes cross a railroad right-of-way it is covered by an agreement. We have only one easement from a railroad for a pipeline running parallel and then crossing the under the track; and this was to serve an industrial development the railroad was doing.

This last week I was reviewing with my boss the pipeline and road access to a landlocked former well site. We have an agreement for the pipeline crossing under the railroad (reissued when assigned to us by the rancher selling the well site). The rancher gave us a road easement to the property up to both sides of the railroad; we had an agreement for the grade crossing for two five-year terms. Then the railroad canceled the agreement, removed the crossing and upgraded the track.