Right Of Way

[miniwyo]

How far off the railway does the right of way extend in open land (no cities, or fences) ? Is there any markers to designate the distance of private RR land where it meets public land?


Thanks

[PNWRMNM]

Par,

Most railroads were built in the 1800's.

Mac

[Anonymous]

How far back must a Railfan be to Watch Trains from the Right of Way?

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M.W. Hemphill

The typical nominal right-of-way for a western railroad is 100 feet wide. Rights of way conveyed under federal and state charters are often 200 feet wide:

"In 1893 North Dakota granted rights of way to railroads over state-owned land to build railroad lines. The rights of way granted were 100 feet wide, or 200 feet wide if necessary, for construction, and at places where railroad stations were located, the right of way was 300 feet wide and 1,600 feet long. The 1893 law provided that if any railway company appropriating public lands under the law abandoned the use of the lands for railway purposes, the lands abandoned would revert to the state." (State of North Dakota DOT)

In reality, width varies frequently and significantly from that nominal width. The right-of-way will be fenced if the adjacent land is used for grazing -- that will be your marker. Other than that, you'd need the surveys or plats. A good track chart will indicate the general arrangement of the property boundaries, but that's only for information.

Easy there Arkansas for-the-moment weedhopper!.....Your last paragraph is getting closer to the truth and please do not assume that 100 ft. is some magic number. Far to many people make wild assumptions on what R/W widths are and folks like me wind up cleaning up the myths & misconceptions of others. (and some are whoppers!) If you know the color of title and have the supporting data, you learn quickly about mitigating circumstances that affect R/W width. Among those mitigating circumstances are how much cut and fill/borrow was required to build the original line in land grant areas. Far too many assume all railroad R/W reverts (and then you have the idiots at NARPO and their Rails-to-trails counterparts who cant fathom the NITU federal rules[V][V][V])

Track charts are just a schematic of the val-maps and those few that attempt to show R/W often times take huge liberties with what they portend to represent. To railroaders, fences are "dog-food prevention devices[:D]" and are not witnesses to boundaries. The mudchickens at AREMA are about to try to teach the basics again to surveyors, engineers and landmen in 2005 and we fear far too many will not see the light. (Maybe we ought to do a tag-team lecture circuit?)

To BNSF railfan, railroaders will get concerned if they see you on the R/W; They go ballistic if they see you within 25 feet of the track.

To MiniWyo: At Rock Springs, UP has set markers over the years consisting of concrete markers (typical) at key points and at jogs along the R/W (I am very familiar w/ Br. 800.7 over Rock Creek on the east side of town, the power crossovers land almost on the steel bridge and there is havoc there every time a surfacing gang goes through)...UPRR also has a few t-rails out in the ground from earlier line changes. In the area between Rock Springs and Monell, the track is "relatively" straight and the R/W is a corkscrew.
Right-of-way maps through here are a bear to understand and the relationship between the current and the original gets blurry. (Mind candy for this mudchicken[:D])

[}:)][}:)][}:)]And to show how wierd things get, BNSF blundered in downtown Denver 4 years ago and built a coal train siding that was partially off of what it owned for 1700 feet, tried to build a depot in Crete, NE that another part of the company sold off the underlying land to and UP has similar skeletons in the closet. Ain't downsizing/dumbsizing fun?

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by M.W. Hemphill

Ye gods, Mud. That's why I used caveats! I've looked at too many plats to ever assumed 100 feet is the rule. You forget I used to be in the construction biz.

Thank god for the caveats. Now if we could play them up a little more for the folks who can only think in absolutes!

Dirty Feathers

[miniwyo]

Mudchicken - Where is Monell?? And what do theese concrete markers look like?

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by miniwyo

Mudchicken - Where is Monell?? And what do theese concrete markers look like?

(1) About 50 miles east of you near Bitter Creek, well to the south of I-80. (Level3 built a fiber optic relay station and blockhouse there about 5 years ago)

(2) Most boundary posts are 10" square or octagonal with 6 foot of it in the ground and 2-3 feet sticking up. Do not confuse these with concrete fence posts and gate posts of similar size and shape. Over the history of UP, the standard plans indicate that the size of the posts have changed in terms of size, marking and rebar reinforcement

[miniwyo]

Cool guys you are all a great help!!

[kenneo]

County deed maps can be real helpful in this matter of boundries. Should you actually go and look them up, - and the registered surveys that go along with them -, it will boggle your mind.

I did the deed work for establishing where the POTB's ROW boundries are, surveyed center lines and ROW boundries over the top of tunnels (that gets real fun on curves) and one of the things I learned really soon on (like about 5 minutes) was that the ROW boundries can and will zig-zag all directions with just a few feet. It gets real interesting.

And about those fences being the ROW boundry. Don't depend on that. Most railroads lease (in one form or another) their right-of-way right up to the clearance line to farmers and ranchers, and in some places they don't even own the land they operate over.

If you are real interested where it is legally safe to be in terms of trespass, don't leave the public highway. If you are going to leave the road, then you should first check the county's deed/ownership/tax map and then pull and read the relevant deeds. The first thing that you will find is that you can not get closer to the RR than the public road without committing trespass -- except on government owned land and sometimes not even then -- without getting written permission from the land owner. And be sure that you carry it on you!

[csxengineer98]

keep in mind that where tracks have been removed or old yards are no longer in service... that is still railroad proporty..even if it is 100 yards from the active tracks... if you are unsure about what is railroad proporty..and what isnt... dont go thier untill you find out.... also sometimes thier are no tresspassing signs but they are few and far between anymore... espicaly out in the country... if you do find one..it probly has more holes from people taking pot shots at them with guns then swiss chesse
csx engineer

[MP173]

Back in the day...

We used to consider the railroad tracks and ROW as almost a park. It was a walking area for both adults and kids. South of town there was a great area consisting of woods, creeks, and ponds where we would fish, hunt, trap, hike, pick blackberries, and throw Illinois Central ballast into the creek.

When the local came thru, we got off the tracks and waved...and the crews waved back.

Granted it wasnt a mainline and it was the late 60's, but we considered it "our railroad." My dad even "leased" a section of the ROW for $1 a year and planted a garden. When the crew switched the siding, they would always check out the status of the corn, beans, mellons, potatoes, etc.

Gabe...how much would it cost in legal fees to draw up that sort of lease today?

Can you imagine what a train crew would think today if they saw a 13 year old standing next to the tracks, with a shotgun or rifle in his hands? My how things have changed.

ed

[dwil89]

I would say that the right of way width does vary. NS's former Pennsy Main on the West Slope between Gallitzin and Johnstown is an example. Roads, parking lots, viewing platforms come me right up near trackside in many locations. Loook at Cresson, where the viewing platform is a matter of 10 or 20 yards from the ballast, or Summerhill, where parking lots, and a road come up within yards of the trackage. ...only a few of the many examples of this in that area. Dave Williams http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nsaltoonajohnstown

[Anonymous]

Here is an example of how difficult it can be to know where the right of way lines are. In one area the Milwaukee Road original main track going west from Minneapolis was in the center of a 100 ft. wide right of way. Later a second main track was added 13 ft. north of the original main track. Still later when CTC was installed the original main track was removed leaving the present main track 13 ft. north of the center line of the right of way. Then someone bought some property adjacent to the railroad right of way and hired a surveyor to stake the lot. The surveyor knew the original main track was in the center of the 100 ft. right of way but he carelessly assumed the present main track was where the original main track had been. This was especially careless because the right of way fence was approximately 37 ft. from the main track and he should not have ignored the fence. I did not agree with the decision but the company gave in and finally sold the property owner a 13 ft. strip of land for a nominal sum of money instead of taking action to remove him from railroad property.

[jchnhtfd]

mdchicken -- a tag team approach might not be a bad idea! Considering what engineers without a rail background and surveyors in general around here don't know about railroads...

Rights of way in the the New England states are rarely a constant width for any distance, and may be very confusing. Unlike Town roads, however, they are almost always described in a deed somewhere -- but that may take a good bit of finding. And a good bit of interpreting, once you find the description.

Surveyors can be horribly careless... as cnwrwyman pointed out. The rules of precedence for ground marks (like fences, for instance) are very complex, though -- but the guy in his example probably should have at least checked the deeds when he found the fence was in an odd spot. Around here, right-of-way fences usually are not actually on the right of way lines, but were put up as needed to protect the track, usually from livestock, and may be quite some distance from the actual line in either direction.

Myself I wouldn't put too much faith in local assessor's maps: they are usually somewhat diagrammatic. They also do not always have the correct current contact for the railroad; there have been a few changes in ownership around here!

Mudchicken -- if AREMA is offering a course along these lines, where and when? I could sure use some refreshing!

[mudchicken]

JH:

I'm not sure about New England , but will cut you in if I find out. We have an invite to Vegas in April and AREMA is talking to NE, IA, GA, TX and IL about running the dog and pony shows listed as "Railroad Surveying 101" put on by Committee 1(roadway). Committee 24 (education)is running a "Railroad Engineering 101" that is a totally different animal. I've got to get busy and get my part of the program complete between x-mas and Jan.3 ....Watch the AREMA site for advance postings at:
http://www.arema.org/eseries/scriptcontent/custom/e_arema/meetings/meetings.cfm?activesection=mtgs

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jchnhtfd

Around here, right-of-way fences usually are not actually on the right of way lines, but were put up as needed to protect the track, usually from livestock, and may be quite some distance from the actual line in either direction.[/qoute]

Thats why e call them "Dog-food Prevention Devices"[:D]


[quote!]
Myself I wouldn't put too much faith in local assessor's maps: they are usually somewhat diagrammatic. They also do not always have the correct current contact for the railroad; there have been a few changes in ownership around here!

We have a situation here in Denver (actually Broomfield) where the highway department, RTD, City of Broomfield and a developer have been swapping land back and forth for a highway interchange (Flatirons Mall, US36 at 96th Ave), Park & Ride and future commuter rail station. The problem is, BNSF owns the land and never agreed to any of the deals[B)][B)][B)]. The problem is courtesy of the Broomfield Assessor (and before that, the Boulder County Asssessor -knuckleheads all!) that "assumed" the railroad R/W was a strip conveyance and not a combination of 5 former railroads R/W and the current track is skew to all of those original allignments. (title outfit clueless as well) We and another surveyor caught the blunder, but at least 5 others blindly followed the assessor's W/A/G[(-D][(-D][(-D] ....BNSF waiting now to pull out their trump card and make life miserable for the local political hacks (I wanna be in the peanut gallery for this one!)

[jchnhtfd]

Mudchicken -- thanks! I'll keep an eye out... And I love your example -- I hit one recently a little like that; Town around my area had cheerfully built a road on top of a railroad tunnel (they do exist in New England -- really!) and put in some other stuff, then needed to get a title cleared... and found out the railroad owned the whole thing, and had for about 150 years or so. All kinds of trouble... !

[Tilden]

Most of the time, if you are polite and interested in the railroad's activities and explain that you are just looking, and not "borrowing" stuff railroad staff tend to leave you alone. Of course having said this I'll probally be driven off the next time I'm at the LOOP.

[tree68]

We've discussed trespassing on the railroad's land/ROW. Don't forget that virtually all land is owned by someone, so crossing a field, or whatever, might not land you in trouble with the railroad, but the property owner might get awfully miffed.

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tree68

We've discussed trespassing on the railroad's land/ROW. Don't forget that virtually all land is owned by someone, so crossing a field, or whatever, might not land you in trouble with the railroad, but the property owner might get awfully miffed.

Some of those folks have guns, no badges and a warped sense of right & wrong. Three surveyors (PA, FL & AL) have been shot & seriously wounded by those clowns...

[Anonymous]

Let me start off by saying that I am not a lawyer. As a consuling engineer I have worked with lawyers over the years, but only know enough about real estate law to be dangerous. I may be making a few legally incorrect statements in what follows. If this is the case please forgive me.

The assessor's maps and ownership rolls are fraught with errors. All the assessor cares about is having every square inch of land accounted for even though his boundaries may have no relevance to the real world. The assessors other criteria is to see that the taxes are paid on all property. They do not care who actually owns it as long as they receive a check covering the taxes. If you want to know the actual ownership and boundaries do a title search at the county recorder's office. This is not hard or time consuming and can lead to some real interesting stories.

Many times the railroad (and power companies and pipeline companies) will be granted an easement instead of actual ownership to use the land for their intended purpose. When the line is officially abandoned to FRA legal standards the easement usually will revert to the adjacent land owner. If this is the case it may be almost impossible to reserrect the right of way at a later date. Think about trying to reserrect the Milwaukee Road right of way in the west now that it has reverted.

Just because the railroad owned the land does not mean that they own it now. There are squatters rights where someone squats on the property for a specified time and the land is his. The only way to loose it is to not be paying the property taxes. Oftimes the railroad will be paying the taxes and not be aware of tha adverse possession issue. We had this occur with the Plano LRT line for DART. A lumber company built a storage yard the length of their adjacent land and extending 25 feet into Southern Pacific's ROW. When DART bought the ROW from SP and surveyed it we discovered this tresspass. Bottom line: We paid over $50,000 to get him off our property. As a DART board member I insisted that surveys be made on all the ROWs to prevent further problems like this.

Several ROWs will be stated as extending 50 feet from the center line of the track. It is easy to identify the edges of the ROW if the track has never been moved. We had one case where the railroad built a new bridge over a road adjacent to the old track and removed the orginal bridge and approaches. Where is the ROW boundaries along the bridge now? This took a day in court to settle this issue with the boundary being described as 50 feet from the center of the original line.

Life is not easy.

*** Watkins

[Anonymous]

This is all very interesting. What about the land grants from the Fed way back during the building of the Transcon? Somewhere, I recall reading about large alternating plots (opposite sides of the track) of land. Are these part of the R/W, or did the railroads sell- off the parcels?

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

QUOTE: Originally posted by tree68

We've discussed trespassing on the railroad's land/ROW. Don't forget that virtually all land is owned by someone, so crossing a field, or whatever, might not land you in trouble with the railroad, but the property owner might get awfully miffed.

Some of those folks have guns, no badges and a warped sense of right & wrong. Three surveyors (PA, FL & AL) have been shot & seriously wounded by those clowns...

warped sence of right and wrong... privet proptry is privet proporty..regardless of what they are doing on it... just becoues your a surveyor dosnt give you any more right then anyone else to go onto someones proproty without permition....
csx engineer

[MikeSanta]

In Texas, it does. In 1989 or so, they passed a law sayimg that a surveyor CAN trespass on private property to survey it. After all, you have to know where you are to trespass or not trespass, or whose place you're on in the first place.

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by csxengineer98

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

QUOTE: Originally posted by tree68

We've discussed trespassing on the railroad's land/ROW. Don't forget that virtually all land is owned by someone, so crossing a field, or whatever, might not land you in trouble with the railroad, but the property owner might get awfully miffed.

Some of those folks have guns, no badges and a warped sense of right & wrong. Three surveyors (PA, FL & AL) have been shot & seriously wounded by those clowns...

warped sence of right and wrong... privet proptry is privet proporty..regardless of what they are doing on it... just becoues your a surveyor dosnt give you any more right then anyone else to go onto someones proproty without permition....
csx engineer

Um, csx hogger, which state do you occasionally call home? 38 of the 50 states have surveyors right of entry statutes. Six more are drafting legislation. The others invoke the safety clause ("for the well being of the general public"). The Florida surveyor was shot standing in the roadbed and the PA surveyor was recovering a monument on the R/W line. The AL jerk that shot the LS is in the pokey for 20 years. Surveyors can also get court orders and supoenas for the difficult ones as well.

[csxengineer98]

i dont occasionly call any state home..i call PA my home.... and as far as proporty rights go... all the person has to do is go up to the residence in question and state their biz on thier land...no just go out thier and start walking around... with all the liabily crap that goes on anymore and people sueing over anything...i dont want anyone on my land unless i give them permstion to be thier... state your reason for being on my ground..and ill be more then happy to acomidate you... but you just show up walking around my place..and im going to ask you to leave.... now as far as useing guns... i will give you that one... the people did cross the line by fireing on them..... and with laws alowing tresspassers for what ever reason is just another rerostion of property owners rights...
csx engineer

[rrnut282]

Mud's right on this one. When I'm doing survey work, I don't have to ask for permission, I just have to give notice. How is not specified, but accepted practice is in writing a week in advance when preparing a route survey plat. 9 days out of 10, you won't even know I was there, as I only leave 3 small holes where the instrument was set up.

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rrnut282

Mud's right on this one. When I'm doing survey work, I don't have to ask for permission, I just have to give notice. How is not specified, but accepted practice is in writing a week in advance when preparing a route survey plat. 9 days out of 10, you won't even know I was there, as I only leave 3 small holes where the instrument was set up.

Just as in railfanning, leave only footprints!

PA huh? Nora, about that job back there......

[jeaton]

Going back to the original thread. I have been thinking about purchasing the piece of CMStP&P ROW running through the farm if I could ever find out who has the title on the property. Now I am not so sure. Maybe the house sits on somebody elses land! Since the track was torn up in 1943 and Milwaukee Road property has gone through ownerships like a ping-pong ball, I think I'll just leave it to the snowmobilers to enjoy.

Otherwise, it is a nice quiet place in the summertime. MC could bring out his students to practise. [bow][bow][bow]

Jay[:D]

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

Going back to the original thread. I have been thinking about purchasing the piece of CMStP&P ROW running through the farm if I could ever find out who has the title on the property. Now I am not so sure. Maybe the house sits on somebody elses land! Since the track was torn up in 1943 and Milwaukee Road property has gone through ownerships like a ping-pong ball, I think I'll just leave it to the snowmobilers to enjoy.

Otherwise, it is a nice quiet place in the summertime. MC could bring out his students to practise. [bow][bow][bow]

Jay[:D]

Make sure these folks don't lay a claim to your ex-Milwaukee R/W:
http://www.cmchp.com/

You have a local abstactor or a local courthouse with an assessor not living in the 1920's?