Abandoned Railroad Railway

[Walnut Beast]

Does anybody have them running through their property or salvaged anything left behind. Any history or stories to share.

From my brief research I had the Chicago, Rock Island, Pacific that ran through my new farm. I don't know how old it is but on a 1950 map it was on there. The Company went bankrupt in the 70s and 80s and  liquidated. Seems over expansion, striking workers were the main thing that did them in.

[Old Greenhorn]

Are the tracks still there? If so, that line way still be on the federal register. If the tracks have been pulled, then it was decommissioned. I have found old spikes and plates along some lines, but not much else of interest.
These days around here they are making them all into rail trails, which apparently have to be blacktopped 'to be safe for the public'. People go out and walk and say they are 'hiking' :D. I have no idea why we have to make paved 'trails' when we live in the 240 square mile Catskill Park which has some of the nicest hiking trails in the country. Seems stupid to me, real stupid, but my tax dollars at work. >:( ??? : :-\

[kelLOGg]

Yes, one butted the back of my property 20 -25 years ago. People would dump garbage near the intersections of roads, so once I took my tractor to the intersections and pushed up dirt to block entrance. Life was rural then and no traffic. Not too long thereafter the rails were taken up for a Rails-to-Trails path - but they left 4 rails which I retrieved and used as a base for air-drying lumber. I eventually moved my air drying operation to my barn shed and gave to rails to a customer who used them likewise. Glad to get rid of them - I learned they are illegal to "own".

[Tom King]

Does anyone have a right of way?  Down here, they're getting ready to reuse a right of way that CSX owned and took the tracks up on.

NCDOT: S-Line Projects ? What is the S-Line

[Walnut Beast]

I own mine. I think Greenhorn is right on about the rail's being removed decommissioned and land being abandoned. I will have to look around a little bit more but there are some old signs in the woods where the train went through where I set my deer feeder along there and field.  I'll have to look at the sign a little closer to see what it was

[peakbagger]

In many cases, the land for the railroads was seized by eminent domain and once the railroad ceases to exist the land reverted to the abutters. In many states, the states "bought" the rights to maintain ownership of abandoned right of ways so it did not revert to the abutters.

[SawyerTed]

Been through this drill on some company owned property one time.  We were investigating re-establishing rail service for some shipping.

The status of the ROW is the determining factor.  Rails and ties can be removed, "appear abandoned" but if the ROW is retained by the rail company, they can recommission it and use the ROW. 

The ROW has to be relinquished and deed legally changed to remove the ROW.

In the end the company owner decided trucking was more time responsive.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I'm not positive that just because the tracks are gone that the ROW is longer in place. I would think that your title search when you bought the land should reveal that. If it didn't you should be able to get that from them. Railroads can be a myriad of intersecting rules between federal, state, and local, plus the federal railroad act or whatever they call that 'thing'.

[Resonator]

The fall of passenger train travel business, and the rise of the interstate highway transport system were the two big factors in the decline of many railroads in the 70's and 80's.

In my region (as I understand it) the railroad owns the rails, ties, signals, etc., while (usually) the state owns the dirt underneath. A railroad line is first placed "Out of Service", where trains no longer use it and no maintenance is done. After it is out of service, the railroad files for abandonment with the government. Once it is officially abandoned, the railroad surrenders it's ownership and the tracks are removed.
Where this gets tricky is when a section of right of way is put back into service, and land owners find out if they really own the R.O.W. or not. Also non-railroad communications cables, power lines, or pipe lines could be buried on the right of way under previous easements.

[Old Greenhorn]

I hate not knowing basic info on stuff like this so I fell into a short rabbit hole locking for something I recall seeing before. Cut to the chase, go to THIS LINK and you will see a listing of all filings, use the search tool button, search the text in those filings and enter the township in question. you should find something about this.
Oops, sorry, I can't find the 'insert hyperlink' button anymore, here is the direct URL: Surface Transportation Board  which you will probably need to copy and paste into your search bar or something.

[thecfarm]

Right under the U that is underlined. Second row, third one in, earth with a piece of paper.
Just hover the mouse over it. 

[Larry]

My first management job with AT&T was in Trenton Missouri a few years before the Rock Island went bankrupt.  Trenton had a Rock Island depot and the town economy was totally dependent on the railroad.  When the Rock went bankrupt they sold every asset that would bring a dollar to pay off creditors.  I'm not aware of any right of way going back to the landowners.

A few years after the bankruptcy I worked with the local power company to acquire an easement on some Rock Island right of way.  It was of no use to a railroad and the tracks along with the ballast had been sold off.  The power company wanted it for a high voltage transmission line and I wanted it to place a fiber optic toll cable.  Burlington Northern had possession at the time.  Rock Island had obtained the right of way originally about a 100 years earlier.  Legal records and surveys were a mess but they dated back to the 1800's.

I see Missouri has started turning a 200 mile section between St Louis and Kansas City into another rails to trails thing called the Rock Island Trail.  In the link you can see how Missouri got right of way possession and this is over 40 years after Rock Island declared bankruptcy.

[dogone]

   I have a quarter mile or so of abandoned rail line on my farm. It was from the original trans Canada rail about 1890. Part is farmed but the ground is a different shade. There is also about 200 feet of 10 ft high grade through a low spot.
    The present rail runs about a half mile away. It is much straighter then the original being machine built not horse and scraper.

[Old Greenhorn]

Thanks Ray, I found it now, just getting old I guess. :D
----------------------
Larry, your post reminded me of a song (things either remind me of songs or stories, sorry). This one was written by my friend Gordon Titcomb who was in Arlo Guthrie's band for some 20 years playing pedal steel, banjo, mando, and guitar. When he retired from the road and the band he cut an album of his own and this is the titular track. It's a great album. I didn't realize until tonight that Bill Keith also played on it, I thought Gordon did all the instruments. Anyway, Gordon sent me a copy years ago and it's been on regular play rotation in my truck ever since.

The Last Train - YouTube

[Walnut Beast]

I'm not aware of any right of way going back to the landowners.


Larry with the verbiage in the Warranty Deed it was for the sum of one dollar.

[sawguy21]

The local CPR spur was abandoned years ago and has been turned over to the rails to trails group but between First Nations and local farmers claims I doubt if I will see construction going any further. Crossings allowing farmers access to the lake for livestock and machinery have been removed, in some cases the fields are no longer able to be used. It is a mess. >:(

[Roundhouse]

There is a wide variety of original agreements that govern railroad rights of way. Some were established with large land grants and set aside their own property for the track and facilities while selling as much of the rest of the grant as possible. When there was more settled territory to build across agreements were reached with each landowner along the way. This was often in the form of an easement that reverted to the neighboring owners once the line was abandoned or the RR dissolved. The rails to trails movement started to take off in the 1980s. One of the reasons behind this is the ability to "rail bank" a corridor. When the track is removed and an easement reverts to the landowners it's gone forever. You can imagine how tough it would be to route a new railroad across 1000s of separate properties, it just wouldn't happen. By rail banking a corridor it is preserved as an easement with the right to reconstruct the railroad should the need arise. In reality it is very rare for a rail banked right of way to be rebuilt but if a community wants to hold out hope for future industry they will persue this. More common, these places that are loosing their RR lines and industry are turning to recreation and tourism to provide some jobs and see the trails as a way to move in that direction. Not that rails to trails is without controversy. Plenty of landowners that would otherwise get that strip of land back resent it being opened up for anyone on the trail to keep using the corridor.

A decent place to look up the status for your property or property near you would be a copy of the county platbook. If an old rail corridor is intact with a new owner it will often show up as a 100 foot wide strip of property on the map. This might be the state, it may be a utility company, it might be a railroad hanging onto it for possible reuse.

The Rock Island failed for many reasons. In the mid-1960s the Union Pacific began proceedings to merge with the Rock Island. The Interstate Commerce Commission had a lot scrutiny it applied to transactions of that size and the case took 10 years before this merger was ultimately rejected by the ICC. By then a lot of investment in the Rock Island had been "on hold" in a sense and the track was in rough shape, margins were slim on a lot of RRs in the 1970s and the 'Rock never really recovered. Some pieces are busy mainlines today under other operators but other long stretches are gone.

[Sixacresand]

We have abandoned Rail ways in middle GA.  I don't know who owns the property.  I can't imagine the RW not owning it. 

During my few visits to northern VA, I biked along an abandoned RW, which originally ran into Washington, DC.  It was very nice'  My thought was why would a place that close to DC, who pushes "green" passenger train use, not develop any and all possible passenger train opportunities in and out of DC?   Probably because it would have to be funded by the government. 

[mudfarmer]

I always heard that Rock Island was a mighty good road

Lead Belly - "Rock Island Line" - YouTube

Cool info in this thread!

[scsmith42]

I manage the real estate for a neighboring RR Museum.  Our ROW's fall into two categories.

1 - a right of way easement over someone else's land.  The land under the ROW is part of the other party's deed; but the RR ROW has rights that are superior to the landowner.  Some landowners over the years have had their property re-surveyed to remove the ROW land so that they are not paying property taxes on it.  On my own land, I have a 300' long ROW along one portion of it that dates back to 1909.

2 - A ROW that is on land actually owned by the RR.  The museum that I'm with has both.  One might ask why a ROW over land that is actually owned by the RR?  It's for zoning reasons.  RR ROW's have superior property rights that many municipalities cannot infringe upon.  They are exempt from local building codes, zoning setbacks, etc.

[Ljohnsaw]

Somewhat related. My cabin property in the Sierras has a trail halfway down my hill where there is a natural bench. That is where we found an old Dodge convertible carcass from the 1930s. I found an old plat map online and printed it out as big as I could.

I have I80 on my north boarder. That took over most of Historic 40 when it was constructed. I have a slice of that old road down there. But the trail was apparently a road that predated 40.

The trail is shown on the plat as the Emigrant Trail. There are a few buildings shown, some that don't exist anymore, along with owners names.

[21incher]

My last house was right next to an abandoned RR bed. We used to ride dirt bikes on it all the time back in the 1980s as the tracks had been removed with a washboard gravel bed.  Had almost 20 miles of it to ride basically from the old railroad bridge over the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie to outside  Hopewell junction.  Then the state finally started  closing  it off with barriers and taking the bridge over rt 55 down and making trails that excluded motor vehicles. It was fun while it lasted. I think in NY the state owns the right of way after they are abandoned.

[mudfarmer]

21incher we used to live next to this one and also ride dirt bikes on it  ;D You still can ride dirt bikes on it!

https://cnyhiking.com/RutlandTrail.htm

The Rutland Trail is a multi-use trail extending for 24.1 miles from Norwood to Moira, NY in St Lawrence and Franklin County in northern New York.  The Rutland Trail is part of the remains of the Rutland Railroad Northern Division. Originally, the railroad extended across the entire northern top of New York State, from Ogdensburg in the west to Rouses Point in the east.  This trail is sometimes on private property as well as public property.

The trail starts from Railroad Ave in Norwood and is continuous to Winthrop, where the bridge over the St Regis River was removed. In Winthrop you have to cross the St. Regis River on a highway bridge and skirt a half mile of rail bed that dead-ends at the bridge. The trail is open again from there into the village of North Lawrence, where the bridge over the Deer River was removed. Beyond the Deer River is a one mile section which is posted land by Breyer Yogurt.  Beyond that section the trail is open to Moira.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutland_Railroad

The Rutland Railroad (reporting marks RUT, R) was a railroad in the northeastern United States, located primarily in the state of Vermont but extending into the state of New York at both its northernmost and southernmost ends. After its closure in 1961, parts of the railroad were taken over by the State of Vermont in early 1963 and are now operated by the Vermont Railway.

[SawyerTed]

The Virginia Creeper Trail is a very popular and successful rails to trails effort.   It's big business during tourist season for some southwest Virginia communities. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Creeper_Trail

[thecfarm]

21incher, I've seen that bridge in Poughkeepsie.

[21incher]

21incher, I've seen that bridge in Poughkeepsie.

Now it's a hiking trail over the river.  So glad they saved it and built a decent bed on it.

[thecfarm]

Yes, I saw that. I was there maybe 10-15 years ago. People were walking across the bridge.

[Walnut Beast]

Looked around a little while checking the deer feeder out at the farm with the old railway and there is an old electrical pole line at one time with the old green and white screw on glass insulators. A numbered sign that could be seen from both ways from briefly looking. No sign of any steel rails.

[Nebraska]

Our "cabin land is a rail road right of way lot that was part of a branch line that ran up to Bonesteel SD, on the Chicago Northwestern railways "cowboy line".  There's an old bridge abutment and the grade is there but it's pretty much grown up to Siberian elm, mulberry and box elder scrub. It has a spot where I wonder if they had a water tank to fill the locomotives.  Just looks  like it made sense the way the grade runs against the hillside as it comes into the little town. There's odd old foundation remnants and an abandoned water line in an odd spot. Old railroad bridge makes a good spot to catch a catfish in the spring when the water is high.

[Stephen1]

Looked around a little while checking the deer feeder out at the farm with the old railway and there is an old electrical pole line at one time with the old green and white screw on glass insulators. A numbered sign that could be seen from both ways from briefly looking. No sign of any steel rails.

The numbered sign is probably a mile post, if it is the same # on both sides. It will be  based from a junction of larger urban centre.

[Ron Wenrich]

I've been at my house for 46 yrs.  When we first moved in, there was an active RR track on the east side of my property for about 1/3 mile.  They used it every Saturday to pick up 5 cars of coal from a crushing operation.  About 35-40 yrs ago, they shut the line down, right after they repaired it with new ties. 

When they tore it out, they recovered all the usable ties and rail.  What wasn't usable, they simply rolled down the sides of the rail bed.  They're still there.  I did manage to get some RR spikes.  I found them useful to put in the ground where my cleanouts are located.  I can find them with a metal detector, if need be.  I recovered a few tie parts that weren't too rotted for some projects.  They're long gone.

I didn't have any ROW in my deed, so I'm not sure if there ever was one for my property.  I was told that they went to adjoining landowners to sell them the land, so I'm under the impression that the RR purchased the land.  There is an old canal from the early 1800s that is nearby and that was all purchased land.  I believe that was probably the way they did business in the 1800s.  There is also some abandoned RR lines that were being built and the companies ran out of money without ever getting into business.

Before rails-to-trails come in, dirt bikes used to run the old railbed.  Unfortunately, some bikers think that all adjoining property is free to ride their bikes.  There were also people who thought that old railbeds were good places to shoot guns.  I do know you hear the bullet wiz past you before you hear the shot.

They started doing rails-to-trails in my county.  But, they had to purchase old railbeds from landowners.  In one instance, they actually purchased the old canal property to put in the trail because a landowner refused to sell the RR bed.  When they did the trail next to me about 10 yrs ago, they invited me to several meetings to explain what they were doing, since I had an adjoining property.  I pretty well understood the process and knew it wouldn't affect me since it was pretty far away from my house. 

[Resonator]

Mileposts were common on railroad lines to measure the distance of track on each line, as said starting at zero at a major junction/terminal. Also before speedometers, the Conductors would time the distance on their pocket watch as they passed mileposts.

and there is an old electrical pole line at one time with the old green and white screw on glass insulators.

That is a most likely what remains of a telegraph line. Long before radios, computers, and cell phones, communication on the railroad was done by telegraph. Railroad employees would send a messages over the wires in Morse code, and each station would hear a stream of dit-dah-dit-dit sounds, de-code it, and reply back in code.

[Ljohnsaw]

I thought I had some pictures... Up past my cabin is Donner Summit. The SPPR has a line (the original Trans Continental) snaking up the Sierras on the west side. Right at the summit, going down to Truckee, they are on the sides of the steep mountains.  Lots of avalanches.  So they built snow sheds.  Originally wood and replaced with massive concrete walls and pre-poured roofs.  They later decided to bore a new tunnel.  It's about 3 miles long, IIRC.  Anyhow, there is several miles of snow sheds winding around that they abandoned.  The ballast is still there but the rails and ties are gone.  Big warning sign for no trespassing but everyone uses it for a hiking trail. Stunning views looking north over Donner lake and easterly toward Truckee.  Right at the beginning is a funny 1/4 mile tunnel through a solid rock peak.  The top of this massive hole is soot-stained from the steam engines.  Just past that is a granite shelf that a hundred or so people gather to watch the 4 of July fireworks on the west shore of Donner lake, about 3 miles away and 2,000 feet lower.  Really neat place.

[Stephen1]

Mileposts were common on railroad lines to measure the distance of track on each line, as said starting at zero at a major junction/terminal. Also before speedometers, the Conductors would time the distance on their pocket watch as they passed mileposts.

and there is an old electrical pole line at one time with the old green and white screw on glass insulators.

That is a most likely what remains of a telegraph line. Long before radios, computers, and cell phones, communication on the railroad was done by telegraph. Railroad employees would send a messages over the wires in Morse code, and each station would hear a stream of dit-dah-dit-dit sounds, de-code it, and reply back in code.

Conductors were in the caboose, would time the mile post to ensure the engineer who runs the engine pulling the train, was not speeding. The Engineer also used mile posts to time his speed. The odd time I would have an engine with a broken speedometer or one that was calibrated wrong, and I would use 10 poles to guesstimate my speed. There are 40 poles to the mile. 60 seconds for 60 mph, or 15 seconds for 10 poles gave a good estimate. Geese its been a while since I thought about all that.  :D

[Walnut Beast]

Love the interesting stories guys! And thanks for answering some questions I didn't know what the heck some of that stuff was for!