What if we could sqaut a abandoned railroad and take it over?

[trainfinder222]

Up here in St.Jays there is a 22 mile railroad that is abandoned in place that has not had a train in 22 years. All of or most the track is still there. It connects with VT railway who then connects with NECR who then connects with CSX. According to Federal ICC (STB) law if a railroad is abandoned in place andf has not had a operate in more then 2 years one could apply for adverse abandonment thru the Surface Transportation Board to take it over to operate it.
I talked to the state and the local industrial board and they say that even they don't know who owner it has the last owner of record died 5 years ago...I also know that there are also a couple of railroads out west that still have tracks in place as well...http://www.stb.dot.gov/stb/index.html for some of the rules. This has been done before where railfan groups have taken over tracks for use by speeders

 

[rails2rails]

I call dibs on the Engineer's chair!

 

[Fishkiss]

There's abandon railroad all over nw Ohio.Toledo area.and most connect to csx or ns mainline.ny- chi cc....aww ya.rite thru center of city...feel like somehow ppl.will die or land in jail here tho.

 

[Deleted member 20]

There are tons of groups turning rails into trails, as if there arent enough recreational trails around. I think should leave the tracks intact there could be some awesome human powered or motorized individual rail vehicles. It would be nice to have some tracks all to ones self even temporarily, say to shuttle supplies deep into middle of no where to build a homestead.

 

[Tude]

There are tons of groups turning rails into trails, as if there arent enough recreational trails around. I think should leave the tracks intact there could be some awesome human powered or motorized individual rail vehicles. It would be nice to have some tracks all to ones self even temporarily, say to shuttle supplies deep into middle of no where to build a homestead.

That is an interesting concept of the human powered rail vehicles - from the many bicycle clubs/organizations I'm in - it's just a huge goal to revamp those rails to trails - which really sounded great but your comment is quite interesting and makes sense too.

 

[rails2rails]

Way too many rails2trails, need more rails2rails.

 

[trainfinder222]

Sometimes these rails to trails people want to rip up the rails of a not dead railroad as in the case of the Adirondack scenic railroad see- http://adrtrail.pbworks.com/w/page/1417506/FrontPage
http://www.adirondackexplorer.org/stories/bikepath.php The railroad is still in use and is doing quite fine as a escusion railroad some talk as a freight railroad as set the envirowackos into high gear to kill a good railroad
The rails to trails was supposed to save railroad corridors see- http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/534632.html not rip them apart

 

[trainfinder222]

Railbanking is "retaining a rail corridor for future railroad uses after service has been discontinued (and) provides for interim public use of the corridor." The rails and ties can be removed, yet allow for their return in the future. This cannot be done without the agreement of the railroad, according to the RTC book, and neither the ASR nor DOT want to do this. Yet ARTA believes it can force the situation and is acting accordingly.