My municipality has a grade crossing which is approached by a steep grade. The steepness is such that tractor trailers can bottom out or scrape the trailer under
side in attempting to cross it. The crossing is on a former PRR spur that has been unused for decades. The most practical way to address the crossing is to eliminate the spur and then grade the street right of way. Can a citizen make the abandonment petition or must a municipality do so? Or, should the current owner, NSRR be the petitioner? Is the authority to abandon with the Surface TRansportation Board?
Only the current railroad owner can file for abandonment through the Surface Transportation Board.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD Only the current railroad owner can file for abandonment through the Surface Transportation Board.
Adverse abandonment (VIA STB) is also an option, usually the responsibility of local government. Local government is responsible (exact limits determined by state statute) for the approach grades beyond the edge of tie (2'-0") beyond the edge of rail. The local road agency is in deep for acquiessing/ allowing the approach grades to remain. AASHTO/AREMA Joint standard - decades old)
Depending on whose railroad it is now, there should be a license/contract/permit showing who owns/operates/maintains the thing. Is it valid or in breach? (highly unlikely to be found in the local courthouse)
Cerro Gordo County in Iowa (Elm Drive / Mason City... connecting to IATR) just found out the hard way that they could not change/ remove/redesign a crossing in Iowa that was privately owned and that most of the assumptions they made were totally bogus.
Has anyone actually asked or hired a qualified professional ask or investigate the status of the crossing or the track? (assuming the rubber tired locals haven't got a clue) The state, under a longstanding MOU with the ICC/STB is responsible for the crossing safety issue - It might even order the local road agency to rebuild the approaches, given the proper conditions.
Until some basic questions are answered with facts (and not WAGs or warped opinions), nothing is going to happen.
Something is "off".The initial post statement is hardly enough to sort out what goes here. Suspect the railroad, even CR before NS would have jumped at the opportunity of eliminating an at grade crossing of any flavor. Joe Friday, where art thou?
Per chance, the road cannot legally be there? (had one of those this fall in CO)
Try sending a letter to Norfolk Soluthern demanding that they restore service on this vital link to commerce for your city. That should do the trick.
The first step is to determine the status of the "spur". Is it actually owned by a "railroad" or is it some defunct industy's private spur track? Abandonment of a private spur track typically doesn't require any STB approval (in fact, abandonment of a railroad owned spur track not part of a line of railroad doesn't require any STB approval). And, if it really is a long unused private spur, I doubt if the railroad that once served it would raise any objection to its demise. Question - is there still a switch connection to an operating railroad? Railroads often eliminate switch connections to unused spurs.
Convicted One:
Very funny and so true of the way railroads often operate.
'mmmmm--Maybe we could get a band of NIMBYs to band together and start a petition to require the railroad to build a grade separation? Any schools nearby? We could always add on the need to keep our children safe from undesirable elements known to frequent rail centers.
Actually, I'm more inclined to support Falcon's suggestion. You follow that spur I suspect that you will find a missing switch. Very possibly a lead serving a defunct industry. Might have even belonged to that long gone industry, which with unpaid property tax you know where that ends up.
We had a crossing in town for a unused shortline for ages. Town finally just cut the crossing and repaved. Eventually a new company bought it and restored service - I don't know if the town paid or the company did (they had to realign the track anyhow). But that didn't seem to be much of a hurdle.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
For what it may be worth, I think any attempt whatsover by this guy to 'privateer' abandonment proceedings is silly.
What he needs to do is go to his local municipal authority, raise the question of safety, and have them take up the technical and legal ramifications to get something done.
And 'raise consciousness' or 'community organize' to get awareness of the problem up and directed toward action: write letters or articles in the local press, hold meetings, contact the ATA or other agencies that might have a concern of any kind and see if they'll participate or assist.
(You can always enlist experts to support those efforts, of course, and you've already gotten quite a bit of $300 per hour advice free. But without a good-enough perceived "reason to act", don't expect most local jurisdictions to spend scarce resources on something not 'squeaky' enough yet...)
SAMUEL C WALKERThere remains a switch connection
Somebody is paying a switch maintenance fee to keep that switch active.
There are the people you need to go after.
Again, DOT# - without that he is going nowhere fast and his baseline assumptions may be totally off.
Sidetracks, since 1996 are a federal concern (had been state jurisdiction), but not a usual complaint at STB. There are exceptions, notably Iowa, Wichita, Cleveland and Louisiana that did not turn out the way the complaintant expected. (the being prevented from being connected to the interstate rail network weighs large as does having a binding contract agreement.
Convicted One SAMUEL C WALKER There remains a switch connection Somebody is paying a switch maintenance fee to keep that switch active. There are the people you need to go after.
SAMUEL C WALKER There remains a switch connection
If there is still a switch connected to the Main Track in the area - that is still a active track for the owner of the track. Not having seen anything on the track for a period of time does not mean that the track has been abandoned by the owner.
Before anything can be done - the Owner has to be ascertained.
Where is this line? What city, what streets are involved?
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
With all due respect, seven years is not "unused for decades."
I agree that the town government is the best place to start. Someone must know its status.
Lithonia Operator With all due respect, seven years is not "unused for decades." I agree that the town government is the best place to start. Someone must know its status.
My county has pretty extensive tax maps on-line. I realize some counties may not.
While I don't recall it being mentioned as such, I have to suggest that next time you pass that crossing you look for a small blue sign (required for most, if not all crossings) on the crossbuck. It will have the crossing number and the responsible railroad on it.
The national crossing database is available on-line to the public. You can find out all sorts of information (like train frequency, f'rinstance) on that site.
Such background information will be handy when you pass this task off to the municipality, as has been suggested.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
My presumption is the spur is privately owned or financed and does not belong to NS any longer. The other option is NS sees the utility of keeping it in place for now out of hope for future business. I suspect the former vs the latter.
If the company that used to own the rail is out of business you can get it condemned. Once ownership is removed any scrapper would come in and take the rails up and then it is just a matter of getting it formally abandoned (if it is on an easement and not on completely private property) and the grade redone by the road owner/maintainer.
I believe you only have to formally abandon rail that is on a public easement, I am just guessing though but it does make sense as nobody cares what rail is on private property. Most railroad right of ways are on public easements that have been "granted" to railroads to use exclusively by the Feds. The land cannot be released from railroad use unless it is "abandoned". I believe "abandonment" also releases the public easement but not a real estate lawyer and only guessing again.
tree68 While I don't recall it being mentioned as such, I have to suggest that next time you pass that crossing you look for a small blue sign (required for most, if not all crossings) on the crossbuck. It will have the crossing number and the responsible railroad on it. The national crossing database is available on-line to the public. You can find out all sorts of information (like train frequency, f'rinstance) on that site.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
tree68My county has pretty extensive tax maps on-line. I realize some counties may not. While I don't recall it being mentioned as such, I have to suggest that next time you pass that crossing you look for a small blue sign (required for most, if not all crossings) on the crossbuck. It will have the crossing number and the responsible railroad on it. The national crossing database is available on-line to the public. You can find out all sorts of information (like train frequency, f'rinstance) on that site. Such background information will be handy when you pass this task off to the municipality, as has been suggested.
https://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/publicsite/downloaddbf.aspx
Thanks, Balt. I don't have that saved in my favorites - I usually just do a search and it pops right up.
Using the blue sign and the national grade crossing inventory is a very good suggestion. But, if this is a private industrial spur, there may not be a sign or an inventory listing. Of course, if there isn't a sign or a listing, that's telling you it's probably not a railroad owned or controlled track.
Falcon48 Using the blue sign and the national grade crossing inventory is a very good suggestion. But, if this is a private industrial spur, there may not be a sign or an inventory listing. Of course, if there isn't a sign or a listing, that's telling you it's probably not a railroad owned or controlled track.
(The GIS maps entries are even more problematic than the record itself, partially because of bad geographic coordinates that were never checked. Plenty of blunders everywhere you look, much of the data created prior to Google Earth, Bing Maps, Etc* with people proving they don't know how to scale a position off a USGS topo map or using the wrong datum.)
We have a problem here with people posting a sign off a list and being two or three crossings off on a line. Light rail, trolleys, historic/tourist lines et al are NOT exempt from the rule. (Fort Collins trolley is in serious deep doo-doo over failure on being accountable and posting signs on Mountain Ave. - they never even tlked to FRA or CDOT Intermodal about getting a series of numbers and filling out the forms).... If you are a rail trail with NITU or CITU status, you are supposed to keep current on this stuff too... a majority of which are NOT in compliance even though they are technically still a railroad corridor under the statute.
Be interesting to see how this comes out. My guess would be the spur is not owned the railroad. Railroads have to pay property taxes on their land, including rail lines, so if the line is never going to be used again it would be to their benefit to remove the tracks and remove their ownership of the land. It could be, if NSRR does own it, that they are trying to get a business interested in locating on the line, so are keeping the tracks in case that happens?
Duplicate post deleted.
Falcon48 Mudchicken’s comment on light rail, trolleys and the Fort Collins trolley is interesting. FRA generally has no jurisdiction over light rail and trolley operations. The exception to this is if the light rail/trolley operation is on track shared with a "real" railroad, or grade crossings in a common corridor with a "real" railroad. I'm familiar with the Fort Colllins trolley, and I can't seen anything in this operation that would make it subject to FRA grade crossing rules (including the signage and inventory requirements). It runs restored streetcars (usually a single truck birney) in the median strip of a city street. It's not in a common corridor with a "real" railroad. It's a typical city streetcar operation. If the Fort Collins operation were subject to FRA grade crossings rules, then the New Orleans St. Charles and Canal Street streetcar lines would also be subject to these rules for every cross street over which they operate. I don't recall seeing little blue signs every block on these lines. And the same would be true of streetcar lines in other cities that still have them. Perhaps the state of Colorado has some of its own rules that would require special treatment of the Ft. Collins "grade crossings"", but the FRA grade crossing rules don't apply to this operation. And, if some local FRA inspector is taking a contrary position, the Ft. Collins streetcar folks need to be talking to his/her superiors. I doubt very much that FRA higher ups want to get in the business of regulating street crossings on city streetcar lines. On the other hand, tourist railroads (both general system and non-general system) with public grade crossings are subject to the FRA signage, inventory and emergency response rules. The comment about "trail" crossings is also interesting. I can see a technical legal basis for it since, under the National Trails Systems Act (NTSA), a rail corridor in NTSA trail use is not considered to be "abandoned". But it seems utterly pointless from a safety persopetive to demand that trail crossings of streets have the signage, inventory, emergency response procedures etc. applicable to "real" rail-highway grade crossings. I'm an avid bicyclist (not as avid as I was before old age), and I've never come across a rail trail/highway crossing signed as a "real" grade crossing. Maybe there's one somewhere, but I've never seen it.
The three STB practioners I've been around regularly the past few years on rail-trail projects have a similar, if not the same opinion. (Asst. State Atty here in CO the same way)
How aggressive the state regulating crossing engineer/ administrator wants to be is up to them. Colorado's PUC Rail Engineer is very aggressive and knows her stuff. FTA remains largely a joke in the safety sense (anything goes) and it is up to the individual states to rein things in with transit not regulated by FRA.
As for the Mountain Avenue folly, it remains one incident away from a regulatory death sentence. They need to quit thinking of it of a municipal plaything.
I found the following to be interesting in the way it outlines a crude strategy to determine the ownership of questionable parcels
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1987/1154/1154-002.pdf
In response to Mudchicken's post of 12/14, FRA isn't going to regulate "streetcar" lines or "streetcar" line street crossings. This goes far beyond the Fort Collins operation (which is a reconstruction of a former city streetcar line). There are streetcar lines in many cities that operate over numerous cross streets. These cross streets aren't FRA regulated "railroad grade crossings". If they were, every cross street on every surviving streetcar line in the USA would have the little blue signs (they don't) and would be subject to FRA horn blowing and emergency response requirements (they aren't).
States can impose their own requirements on streetcar lines not subject to FRA jurisdication. But, with respect to Colorado, I note that the Denver light rail lines, when operating on street trackage, don't have the little blue signs at every street crossing, nor are they sounding their horns at every street crossing in compliance with FRA horn rules.
If the Fort Collins operation is being hounded by local FRA inspectors over their street crossings, they need to go to more senior FRA people. Alternately, they should seek the assistance of HeritageRail regulatory personal, who are familiar with FRA requirements and have contacts with senior personnel in the agency.
By the way, I'm also an "STB practitioner" and I probably have more experience than the three "STB practitioners" you mention. I'm retired now, but I was a senior lawyer for a major Class I railroad with over 35 years experience in the industry. I have very extensive experience in things like mergers, rate/service regulation, abandonments, joint facility and other interline service issues, trail use and FRA regulatory issues. I was heavily involved in development of the ICC/STB trail use regulations for the rail industry and I've been involved in numerous rail-trail deals (including deals in Colorado). I've also been heavily involved in FRA regulatory issues for both Class I and tourist/historic railroads. You may agree or disagree with me, but I'm not a novice spouting uninformed opinions in these areas.
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