Kingston, NY blocks railroad tracks with a dump truck.

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/20 ... Y.facebook

More details on the thread below:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34339&start=30

It looks like the mayor of Kingston, NY and the mayor of Pemberton, NJ went to the same training for mayor.

Thats pretty bold. Even if the city has a court order to stop the movement of the cars, they have no right (thats known) to block the railroad. Thats criminal trespassing, and someone can be arrested for that.
Obviously there isn't going to be any harm done, but if you use the law to get your way, you should be expected to be treated the same way.

Brian

Kensington Truck 40 is an International 4900DT weighs around 12-15,000lbs depending on what all they added for that plow. Should be relatively easy to remove your obstruction.

Could the railroad use a dump truck? Looks like someone abandoned one on railroad property. ;)

Anybody know how to bill a loaded flatcar to Mexico City. ;-)

Well, this is interesting...
http://law.onecle.com/new-york/vehicle- ... _1176.html
In other words, New York Transportation Law Article 29 - § 1176, which states:

So even if the city can prevent the railcars from entering Kingston, they just broke state law by blocking an active rail line... Or at least that's how it's been explained to me.

I posted this on the other thread, and thought it might be appropriate to add it here, too, to note that this fellow seems to have issues with other people--it's not just Catskill Mountain Railway.

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/20 ... 351979.txt

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/20 ... 886773.txt

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/20 ... 213761.txt

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/20 ... 991334.txt

http://www.kingstonx.com/2013/04/08/gal ... ant-money/

How does one deal with such a personality? I can personally tell you you'll never convince them, they are always right. They remind me of the boss who was sure his spelling of some word was right, but his secretary knew better, and even suggested they look up the word in a dictionary. Even that wasn't enough for this boss, who said to his secretary, "Don't blame me, it's not my fault the book is wrong!"

While I have loosely suggested we could aggravate the mayor for sport, let us also recall another lesson to use with our judgement.

http://ivn.us/ars-politica/2013/04/25/t ... ersuasive/

Not to mention the Creede debacle... or the tangle at the Southern Michigan Railroad which ran up over $50,000 in legal bills for the railroad and its volunteers, one of them me.

Indeed, that can be a strategy of the bad guys: bankrupt you with legal bills regardless of the merit of the actions. That can either be "I have a bigger legal war chest than you do". Or it can be an asymmetrical warfare situation where one party has lawyers and the other self-represents (pro-se) -- pro-se has the advantage, because he spends $0 per interaction and the lawyer spends $300. Either way, the strategy is "dwell on trivia" or file ridiculous cases, to make you burn a lot of money spinning your wheels and not getting to a resolution. When lawyers estimate how much a case will cost, they usually assume the other side will deal fairly and not generate frivolity. You think the case will be $5000, and it's up to $15,000 and you haven't even made it to court yet. "Tough break" you say, but no - it was an ambush.

Now how do you beat that - you don't deal with them. Nothing says you have to respond to their lawsuit. If you're gonna lose anyway, don't answer and don't show and your lawyer says "we have nothing to tell you" and hangs up. You'll get judged against but that you will have saved the legal cost and shown them you're smarter than to blow your legal budget on trivia. If you can win, then you don't waste any time dealing with their trivia and focus on a written answer that knocks it out of the park. Invoke every relevant law, don't miss a point, and definitely ask for legal fees, sanctions and for them to be declared a vexatious litigant as regards you and also generally. (you can't get it unless you ask, and people usually don't get it when they could, because they didn't ask, because they were afraid to come off as greedy or didn't want to offend the other lawyer.)

As always, the RyPN Bar Association requires me to notify you that I am not a lawyer, I got everything I know about the law from watching Ally McBeal, etc. etc. etc.

This lead paint thing may be true, but the gold standard process for dealing with it is called encapsulation, where you remove only the spalling material, and paint a stable layer over the solid material. Similar encapsulation rules apply to asbestos. Now the city is lying, by implying that the only acceptable course is removal of the lead and asbestos. That is not true, and if it were true, few pre-1950 buildings would be habitable, including City Hall. A lead and asbestos audit of city facilities will reveal loads of areas that were properly encapsulated or ... not... and of course the sheer hypocrisy involved. And that will play really well in the media.

They will of course defend by saying "that's ENCAPSULATED per the law", and then you say "OH REALLY, so encapsulation is OK all of a sudden? Because you said it was not, and that is our plan."

Of course they'd love it if you forced them to clean up City buildings, because then they get to spend money. That's what this is all about: it's a race for government megabucks, they want to bring contractor money into the region, and they think a trail can do that. (and it can.) I'm not a big fan of those Keynesian games, but sometimes you need to play them: figure out how to use the railroad to bring even bigger G-money and contractor dollars into the town. Might be worth hiring an executive director. For sure they've got to get big or get out, and they've got to do it Right ****ing Now. No, they can't "do their best", because that implies doing it their same usual way, harder... and that hasn't worked so far. This requires an approach at a different angle.

The asbestos may be idle scare talk, there might not actually be any. If there were, it'd be two kinds: the loose flaky pipe wrap which actually is a hazard if perturbed... or the "hard board" stuff used in electrical gear. The second stuff is essential to the functioning of the gear, harmless unless deteriorating (well I wouldn't lick it), and it can be easily removed without "asbestos remediation" simply by selling the electrical gear whole to someone else.

Sometimes you also see "hard" asbestos used structurally in panels. That is not necessary and can be swapped for other materials.

As far as lead, now that the city has spotlighted it, that could be ugly because all eyes will be upon you. Some of your volunteers might be wise to go get NY certified for lead abatement. Also, photograph and document the hell out of absolutely everything, because the city will of course allege that you're doing it improperly, with no basis whatsoever for saying so. If encapsulation won't fly, there are lots of ways to remove lead paint "wet" without spraying lead dust around. E.G. peel it off the car with paint stripper and wipe it off with solvent.

Rust is harmless. Another city lie.

Why must the cars be moved to Kingston? Repaint the cars somewhere else along the railroad out of city limits. Ideally drag them somewhere along the railroad a long way away from any grade crossings to do the work and when they reappear they are repainted with no lead based paint and in full compliance. Then park them next to the dump truck so that the general public sees that the mayor is against moving these shiny, new looking railcars into the city.

Unlike others, I shall keep my comments germane and to the issue at hand. For disclosure, while I am a lawyer, I am not licensed in the state of New York, thank God:

1. Unless you are a resident and voter in Kingston,NY, your comments to the mayor don't mean anything. Seriously, do you think he's gong to listen to people who don't vote, live and/or own businesses in his city?

2. It's not the city's place to "enforce" the Temporary Restraining Order/Temporary Injunction ("TRO"). The Court is the body that enforces it, and if and only if the Catskill Mountain Railroad ("CMR") violated it. I'm sure the Court would love to hear that the city took it upon itself to "enforce" the TRO.

3. This is a TRO. In a TRO situation, the other party, in this case CMR doesn't appear, isn't notified, and does not get to state its case. It's a very one-sided affair. The TRO is only for a limited time, the Court has to hold a hearing and decide whether to make the injunction permanent. As much as others on this board don't think you need an attorney, I hope CMR hires one. By the way, in New York, the "Supreme Court" is your local county court, usually called "Superior Court" and/or "Circuit Court" in your jurisdiction.

4. How did the City get lead paint samples from the cars? It's bonafide proof of trespass. If I were CMR I'd get the state police involved, and/or seek other legal remedies.

5. There is some indication that the City may have violated Federal and/or state law by doing what it did. If I were CMR, I'd use this to my advantage, especially in the hearing mentioned in Paragraph #3 above. Or, go to court and get a TRO against the City for blocking the right of way.

6. This isn't about two rusty passenger cars. It's probably about a larger issue, the rail trail. The mayor is using the legal system to inflict a "death by a thousand cuts" on the CMR. If CMR wins this round, they will find something else.

7. Fighting City Hall is hard. After all, government has the almost unlimited pocketbook of your tax dollars to spend on legal fees to fight you.

8. This is a golden opportunity to use the power of public relations, media and social media to make the mayor of the City look like a horse's behind. Think of holding an Operation Lifesaver press conference at the grade crossing, with the dump truck in the background. "The City of Kingston act foolish, but you shouldn't at grade crossings."

In the end, it will be interesting to see how this plays out, but the melodramatic step of placing a dump truck on the right of way may be one step too far.

David W.
Injunction Junction, MO

That bit about "getting big right now" is right on. One of the complaints of the opposition is that our rebuilding jobs are taking too long. Get the grant money, get the line open NOW, get the possession of the ground. The Catskill Mountain people have done wonders, as have the people at Adirondack Scenic, but they've been facing this same nonsense for years, even decades. I think the Saratoga & North Creek has had to deal with this, too. It's past time to put an end to it.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32021

Of course, the trail people will hate you for it (they'll hate you for anything you do short of going away), it's possible you'll be called a body that "fleeces America," but if you've got your line open and you're providing benefits, that won't matter. Seems those sorts of criticisms only go against things that are easy to pick on anyway, i.e., you never hear about it in regard to the "military-industrial complex," at least not in recent memory.

Some potentially important commentary from Mr. Mitchell in the thread below:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=34811&p=193906

From the Catskill Mountain News thread: