Oh, yeah...
When the ex-MILW trackage between Green Bay and DePere (paralleling the Fox River) was proposed for trail use, several of the landowners were quite upset that their would be a path of runners, bicyclists and runners cutting their yard in half, ruining their property values, creating a huge safety problem, etc. Several months of litigation, letters to the editor, and all general Hades breaking loose ensued before the powers that be decided that, despite the period of inactivity, the line had not been abandoned and so was eligable for railbanking and, therefore, interim trail use.
Now, anyone want to guess the size of brouhaha if anyone wants to put tracks back?
Kevin C. Smith wrote: Oh, yeah...When the ex-MILW trackage between Green Bay and DePere (paralleling the Fox River) was proposed for trail use, several of the landowners were quite upset that their would be a path of runners, bicyclists and runners cutting their yard in half, ruining their property values, creating a huge safety problem, etc. Several months of litigation, letters to the editor, and all general Hades breaking loose ensued before the powers that be decided that, despite the period of inactivity, the line had not been abandoned and so was eligable for railbanking and, therefore, interim trail use.Now, anyone want to guess the size of brouhaha if anyone wants to put tracks back?
It did happen in Texas with the rebuilding of a former SP branch by KCS. There was a whole lot of screaming and moaning but the courts ruled that KCS was within its rights to put the tracks back on the right of way.
On the INRR buying the Effingham - Indianapolis line, was from the IC from Indy to Sullivan IN and trackage rights from Sullivan west, was a track lease through to Newton, IL into Effingham. It was last fall before the INRR bought the ROW itself to Newton, IL from the CN/IC. As far as I know the INRR has rights into Effingham, but I've never seem any of their engines there in the yard there. The line was never abandoned that I know of.
As far as to what they serve along there, besides the Newton power plant. Is a Ethanol plant, in Palestine [where the yard is] , Marathon refinery, The old Heath candy Co. [Hershey now] and the coke plant with coal, 5 days a week in and coke out in Robinson. Also some bulk fertilizer and some grain [most the corn is trucked from local farms to Palestine] along there.
There is also a soy diesel plant going in by Newton I think, set to open next spring.
Not bad for rail fanning down that way, just watch it around Marathon. They have some gun-ho rent-a- cops, I guess.
On Who owns abandoned ROW. Back in the 80's here, Conrail wanted to totally abandon the Cairo/ Danville line, from Paris, IL south. After approval, Conrail then sold salvage rights for the rail and such in 10-mile sections. Then the ROW went back to the original land tracks taxes. A railroad can abandon a section of track and leave every thing as is for lease or in time it can go back to the original land tracks. A bunch of farmers here tried leasing on the line from Paris to West Union, to keep the elevators open, didn't work out at all. The track was so bad by then, 5 MHP was taking a chance on a de-rail and not enough money to rebuild it. The idea was drop 1 year later and by the next year every thing was gone, clear down to the dirt, but the bridges [some are still there]
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/4309
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