There's a common misconception about abandonment that it is all based on track. It's not, it's based on common-carrier service. You have to abandon service before you can ever abandon track. In a classic abandonment, the railroad bails out over the objections of shippers that still want service because they are loosing money on it like crazy and just want out. What often happens now is the shippers have all left, and the railroad can file for an expedited procedure if nothing has moved over the line for two years. It still has to go through OFA process, but abandonment to trail can happen in as little as six months in an expedited procedure. But there's no OBLIGATION to remove rail, that belongs to the railroad after service abandonment is granted. If the trail owners want to buy the rail, they certainly can.

But it's the railroads call to file for abandonment. If they are lazy, or just want to sit on it and let it grow trees, hey, they can. There's a lot of that out there. In some cases, if a railroad is sitting on a property that could be developed as a viable shortline but doesn't offer it for sale, or anything. The 'nuclear' (and expensive) option is to document the need and file for adverse abandonment, essentially kicking the carrier off the line for not providing common carrier service. Few ever actually go that far, but it's the ultimate threat.

If you're trying to reopen a line for preservation purposes rather than common-carrier, you really don't fall under the concern of the STB.

The other thing is that most railbanking activity is purely aimed at preserving easements from reverting to property owners, that's what the law was set up to do as 'interim trail use'. If the railroad actually owns the right-of-way as fee simple transactions, it can't revert. Again, it can just sit indefinitely.

Anything is possible on a case by case basis.

As a general rule, adverse possession doesn't work on entities with eminent domain powers. If it did, the judge would close the adverse possession case in the morning, and hear an eminent domain case in the afternoon taking the property right back.

Fights between two powers with eminent domain are ...interesting. Normally Federal rights of eminent domain (railroads) trump state rights of eminent domain (municipalities).

Adverse possession is impossible until the railroad is abandoned. There is such a thing as adverse abandonment, in which an outside entity forces the railroad to be abandoned, so it can follow with adverse possession or eminent domain. I have only seen it used against heritage railways, e.g. Creede CO.

Only the Surface Transportation Board (former ICC) can do adverse abandonment. The STB's court rules are structured to make getting on their docket VERY expensive, to deter casual, frivolous or foaming claims, no names mentioned.

If the rail is inactive with trees growing up through it, the railroad's weedspray program sucks. That does not make it abandoned in any legal context where the word "abandoned" is relevant. However it does remove the track from the general system of transportation in an FRA regulation context, a museum operation can sweep in, sign a lease, chop the trees and be treated as FRA-Lite.

Of course, it is "aband" in an urban explorer/urban-decay photographer/hipster context, but then, so are idling locomotives.

I haven't recently looked at statute in this area but I was taken to understand railbanking meant rails in place, and landbanking referred to rails removed.

The NWP is not merely embargoed, it is subject to an FRA emergency order shutting it down. To get an emergency order, you must a) do something really unsafe, b) disregard the FRA's written warnings to stop doing that, and c) make them believe you plan to keep doing it. As such, EO's are very rare, with less than 1 per year issued.

That is exactly what North Coast Railway Whatever (operator of the NWP) did, shortly before they botched their FEMA claim, driving themselves into bankruptcy. Unfortunately, EO's survive management changes, so now the four-county authority is a victim of the EO and must go to Washington and prove "they" have turned over a new leaf and won't do that "anymore" when they start commuter rail service. FRA is being parsimonious with lifting the EO, and reopening the line only in segments. This is also an impediment for groups in Arcata and Willits, either of which could make a train ride on some of the NWP track.

Hi,

I recall the Colorado & Southern operations in the 1930s - reading about it somewhere.

The line was marginal and narrow gauge from Denver to Como to Buena Vista and Como to Leadville over some high passes. (Maybe the line from Fairplay to Buena Vista was abandoned - I do not recall).

The C&S (unlike the Rio Grande) decided to have steel underframe cars and used old 2-6-0s and 2-8-0s for power.

Something like the Denver Water Authority and/or Corps of Engineers wanted the Platte Canyon dammed for water and wanted the C&S to abandon part of their line from Denver to Como (Not all of it IIRC - just where the dam was planned). As I recall, there was no offer to realign the mainline around the resevoir.

A narrow gauge feeder with no connecting to the rest of the C&S and only connected to the nation via the D&RGW at Leadville was not what the C&S wanted. They abandoned the entire narrow gauge in the Rockies and the short line to Morrision was standard gauged.

FWIW

Doug vV

That deal was probably negotiated and settled consensually. Once both parties see the long expensive road to verdict (and the verdict is pretty much a foregone conclusion given the facts on the table), there's mutual desire to avoid legal fees. So they short-circuit the legal process and do a consensual sale.

This would be haggled, of course. The railroad might open with "You are obliged to fund a bypass around the reservoir". And the state goes "Ouch, $50 million is a budget buster, weren't you about to abandon that line?" Railroad, "We still see profit in it." "Do you see $50 million in profit in it?" "Nope." Just that quick it becomes a number for the suits to haggle over, sign papers, done. No lawsuit, very little public record.

I don't like to think of a railroad as "just a number"... but that is how things work in the for-profit sector. That's why I work in nonprofits, where mission matters.