Stop Giving Up ROW

[J-P]

I would like to see Uncle Sam keep the railroad right of ways. While I hate to say "the government should" but in this case, I think as a nation we are losing assets that we'll eventually wish we had back for rail service. I've seen too many "go away" that would have been great for commuter service and long distance/high speed passenger service.

 

[Exvalley]

Another option is rail banking. This allows a recreational path to be built, but the railroad reserves the right to re-develop the right of way.

 

[Tlcooper44]

I would like to see Uncle Sam keep the railroad right of ways. While I hate to say "the government should" but in this case, I think as a nation we are losing assets that we'll eventually wish we had back for rail service. I've seen too many "go away" that would have been great for commuter service and long distance/high speed passenger service.

Losing ROW is less of a problem now than it was in the furious de-railing of the country back in the 70s. Even in rail friendly parts of the country like Boston, we saw so many ROWs abandoned, and stay that way (Sudbury and Lexington lines) until they were redeveloped into bike paths or forgotten altogether.

The most infuriating example however, is the Newburyport line terminating at Newburyport and not the far more intuitive place, downtown Portsmouth, NH. The ROW exists (save for a bridge), and tracks are already in place where the old station was, just an easy walk from the old town. NH is really the reason for this (and perhaps for the same situations at Concord). If you drive past the current terminus, you just see a grassy ROW not being used.

Another option is rail banking. This allows a recreational path to be built, but the railroad reserves the right to re-develop the right of way.

Didn’t know this was a thing. Any current examples?

 

[Exvalley]

Didn’t know this was a thing. Any current examples?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railbanking
https://parks.ny.gov/documents/recreation/trails/RailbankingAndRailTrails.pdf

 

[Tlcooper44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railbanking
https://parks.ny.gov/documents/recreation/trails/RailbankingAndRailTrails.pdf

Cool!

 

[TrackWalker]

Locally, back in the early 1980's a 25 mile low use branch line had a few washouts. Burlington Northern looked at this as a reason to abandon the line. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) said no to abandonment.

The line was instead railbanked with the County turning it into a nice trail with the stipulation that if it was ever needed again as a rail line the railroad would get it back from the County. As well as pay the County for any improvements they had made to it.

 

[danasgoodstuff]

I'm guessing railbanking was not yet a thing when the Mlwk Rd western extension was abandoned? I in WA it's largely trails, but owned by the State so rerailing is at least a possibility, not likely or even necessarily a good idea. It's 'a thing' for industries in (more or less) market economies to overbuild and then over abandon, and it's a waste of valuable capital, but hard to avoid without cumbersome bureaucracy.

 

[George Harris]

1. Reviving a "railbanked" right of way is frequently not as easy as it sounds, particularly if it has been turned into a bike trail or walking trail or some sort of linear park. All the anti's come out of the woodwork to oppose it for all sorts of reasons, real and imaginary.
2. Many railroad right of ways are not absolutely owned by the railroad, but are on easements that revert to previous landowners once the track is taken up. One example, in Dallas DART, DART had to defined as a railroad by the state legislature so a section of one of their lines could be transferred directly from railroad to DART rather than DART having to chase down all the descendants or buyers of the original pre-railroad land. Without something like this, the right of way simply disappears when the track is removed.

As an aside here, when buying or selling a piece of land that is in part used by some form or road or utility, (a lot of rural roads are on easements, not absolute right of ways) make sure the transaction does not exclude the occupied area but does acknowledge it being "subject to" or whatever the appropriate legal terminology is in order to avoid headaches later on.

 

[me_little_me]

1. Reviving a "railbanked" right of way is frequently not as easy as it sounds, particularly if it has been turned into a bike trail or walking trail or some sort of linear park. All the anti's come out of the woodwork to oppose it for all sorts of reasons, real and imaginary.
2. Many railroad right of ways are not absolutely owned by the railroad, but are on easements that revert to previous landowners once the track is taken up. One example, in Dallas DART, DART had to defined as a railroad by the state legislature so a section of one of their lines could be transferred directly from railroad to DART rather than DART having to chase down all the descendants or buyers of the original pre-railroad land. Without something like this, the right of way simply disappears when the track is removed.

As an aside here, when buying or selling a piece of land that is in part used by some form or road or utility, (a lot of rural roads are on easements, not absolute right of ways) make sure the transaction does not exclude the occupied area but does acknowledge it being "subject to" or whatever the appropriate legal terminology is in order to avoid headaches later on.

You're not kidding about problems. Local tracks have just been turned over to Conservancy group for setting up rails-to-trails. Some of the land was not purchased and local paper had a big story about all the out-of-state law firms setting up locally to solicit clients to get money from turning over the land to the Conservancy. Now, I have to shower after every trip downtown because of the sleaze.

 

[Qapla]

Gainesville, Fl used to have tracks running to the depot in Waldo - the one that belongs to Amtrak. Not only were the tracks removed and the ROW given up, there is not a widened highway where the tracks used to be so those tracks could not be put back even if they wanted to.

Basically, due to removing tracks and converting them for trails or other use, Gainesville is no longer serviceable by rail, especially passenger - and it is home to one of the University of Florida.

 

[John Santos]

1. Reviving a "railbanked" right of way is frequently not as easy as it sounds, particularly if it has been turned into a bike trail or walking trail or some sort of linear park. All the anti's come out of the woodwork to oppose it for all sorts of reasons, real and imaginary.
[...]

Most likely being opposed by the very same NIMBYs who opposed the creation of the trail in the first place.

 

[Exvalley]

1. Reviving a "railbanked" right of way is frequently not as easy as it sounds, particularly if it has been turned into a bike trail or walking trail or some sort of linear park. All the anti's come out of the woodwork to oppose it for all sorts of reasons, real and imaginary.

The whole point of railbanking is that it avoids the ability of the NIMBYs to prevent the railway being restored. They can complain all they want. but it won't get them anywhere.

From Wikipedia: [T]he federal government guarantees the railroad the full rights to reactivate it. A railbanked line can be reopened within a year's time while an abandoned corridor could take years to be reactivated, if it was even possible. In railbanking, the government helps fund the line's rebuild.

 

[jis]

How many real life examples are there of a railbanked ROW actually getting reactivated for rail use within a year or ever?

 

[Exvalley]

How many real life examples are there of a railbanked ROW actually getting reactivated for rail use within a year or ever?

According to Wikipedia, there have been nine railbanked rights of way that have been approved for reactivation.

I see one denial of a request for reactivation because the petitioner did not actually have any interest in the right of way - and the entity that actually owned the right of way did not want to reactivate it. That petition was fully decided ten months after it was filed.

I do not know how many of the other petitions were granted in a year or less. However, it is clear that reactivating railbanked rights of way is MUCH quicker than abandoned rights of way - and in the meantime the right of way is used by the public in a manner that promotes health and well being.

Keep in mind that railbanking keeps corridors intact. Abandonment does not.

 

[sttom]

I know Iron Horse Trail where I live was railbanked at some point and there have been a couple attempts by BART to reactivate it as a DMU line. From what I can tell, the attempts never made it to the planning stage because rich people blocked it because they live near the trail. Which is a problem with railbanking since, at least here, housing and other things have been built on or close to the old right of way. Which would likely means a bunch of "immeasurably valuable" 1950s ranch homes being demolished to build a rail line. So it's one thing if a trail is largely in an open space, it's another thing if stuff like buildings and a highway are in the way now. Not to mention, there are a lot of dumb environmentalists in the world who will oppose reactivating a rail line just for the sake of they think building anything is a net negative. Which has plagued the North Coast Rail Authority from reopening the NWP to Willits since the Mendocino county enviro-whackjobs have lobbied the county to stop the project which has slowed it down a lot. For whatever reason, they whackjobs think if they stop the reopening of the railroad, people will use the highway less. Which isn't how that works. Since a highway expansion is also on the table, but the railroad isn't. There are a lot of issues with the old NWP right of way north of Willits, but doing anything to build a new line is also off the table even though it's environmental impact would be less over its life than tearing up God knows how much space to build a 2-3 lane highway. And not to mention building a rail line even in a mountainous area is going to be less money than doing the highway since all the easy areas to build on already have a maxed out highway. So it's not just NIMBYs, but also others that will oppose a reactivation/relocation and for different and potentially even dumber reasons.

 

[Exvalley]

I know Iron Horse Trail where I live was railbanked at some point and there have been a couple attempts by BART to reactivate it as a DMU line.

Interesting. I couldn't find any articles on BART's attempt to reactivate the line. I may have missed something, but Google offered nothing.

That said, which do you think is more likely to be reinstated as an active rail line? An abandoned right of way or a railbanked right of way?

The American Association of Railroads has testified before the STB that the railroads are fans of railbanking. This ought to tell you quite a bit.

The requirements to reactivate a railbanked line are fairly minimal. Even a third-party can request reactivation and all they need to show is that they have sufficient financing and that they can demonstrate sufficient shipper demand to warrant the proposed reactivation. Demand for freight rail service must only be supported by "credible evidence" which means something more than just "vague support."

It sounds like BART was more worried about politics, which is not the fault of the railbanking system. I doubt the result would have been any different had BART sought to reactivate a line that had sat unused for many years, but had not been railbanked.

Which is a problem with railbanking since, at least here, housing and other things have been built on or close to the old right of way.

No, that is not a problem with railbanking. Railbanking preserves the right of way. What you described is a problem with enforcement of an existing right of way. As for things being built close to the right of way... that is at the builder's risk. It is simply not a factor in the determination of whether or not the right of way should be reactivated.

Nobody can force a railroad to railbank a right of way. And yet look at all of the railbanking we have seen over years. In each of those instances, the railroad thought that railbanking was preferable to abandonment or just letting the right of way sit dormant.

 

[Exvalley]

Okay, I found some more information about the Iron Horse Trail.

The railroad right of way that compromises the trail was abandoned in 1977. It was not rail banked. Two counties purchased the right of way in 1986 and promptly converted it into a trail. There is no evidence that they intended to restore rail service.

I also found an article that mentioned that, much more recently, BART was considering the right of way for enhanced service. Presumably in response to this inquiry, in 2019 the State of California passed a law that said this specifically about the Iron Horse Trail: While there is potential for emerging transportation technologies to be implemented in the corridor, a busway or exclusive mass transit guideway is no longer a best practice or appropriate use of the right-of-way.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/...html?bill_id=201920200AB1025&showamends=false
If the right of way was railbanked, the state legislature could not have foreclosed the reactivation of the right of way for rail. The example you gave isn't what you think it is. It's the opposite. It's a strong argument in favor of railbanking.

 

[jis]

Here is an interesting blog exploring both sides of the reclaiming of railbanked ROW for use with rail again. The idea of rail banking is a good one and we from NJARP supported it, but experience in NJ has been mixed when attempting to reclaim for rail. We supported the idea because of our experience with the Lackawanna Cutoff which had to be reclaimed through eminent domain proceedings at great cost after Conrail sold it to a gravel company.

Since then there have been a few challenges the one insuperable one has been trail advocates using the statute to grab a rail ROW knowing fully well that they have no intention of returning it, using every political and financial means available to them. The political opposition from trail aficionados often overpowers the fire power of the rail advocates. And of course when the champion of rail advocates is an incompetent outfit like NJT as is the case in NJ, it does not help either.

https://capntransit.blogspot.com/2009/01/failing-railbanks.html
But still preserving ROWs is a good idea. The current statute though sometimes has unintended consequences, like many others I suppose.

In Florida the state of rail raight of way preservation appears to be pretty abysmal to start with, but oddly most highways in Florida have been built with huge medians and ROWs mitigating the failre to aggressively rail bank ROWs to some extent.

Here is a very informative article on the railbanking program...

https://www.nyuelj.org/2016/04/a-primer-on-rails-to-trails-conversions-in-eastern-u-s/

 

[Exvalley]

The title of this thread is "Stop Giving Up Rights of Way."

Railbanking is a method to avoid giving up a right of way.

Is it the best answer in every circumstance? Probably not. But I am very grateful that it is an option.

 

[Exvalley]

https://capntransit.blogspot.com/2009/01/failing-railbanks.html

Let's look at the specific example given in this 2009 blog entry - the Georgetown Branch. Despite significant opposition, approval was given to reinstate the right of way for the Purple Line. So another argument in favor of railbanking.

The author also mentions a couple of attempts at restoring service to abandoned lines, but I don't see what that has to do with railbanked lines.

 

[Exvalley]

Here is a very informative article on the railbanking program...

A Primer on Rails-to-Trails Conversions in Eastern U.S. – NYU Environmental Law Journal

There is one part of that article that I cannot fine any authority for. Specifically, their statement that: If a railroad demonstrates that common carrier rail service is consistent with “the pubic convenience and necessity,” pursuant to 49 USC § 11901, the STB must vacate any existing Certificate of Interim Trail Use for that corridor.

This language is not contained in the citation that they give in support.

The "public convenience and necessity" standard is actually the standard to be allowed abandon a line to restore an abandoned line.
See, e.g.: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CFR-2020-title49-vol8/xml/CFR-2020-title49-vol8-part1152.xml
And: 30039 - Decision

The whole point of railbanking is that the standard to restore service to a rail banked line is much easier than restoring service to an abandoned line. Here is what the STB says about reactivation of a rail banked line: In short, an interim trail use arrangement is subject to being cut off at any time by the reinstitution of rail service. If and when the railroad wishes to restore rail service on all or part of the property, it has the right to do so, and the trail user must step aside. Source: https://prod.stb.gov/wp-content/uploads/BV-6-Jan02-May03-902.pdf

The amount of money spent to construct and maintain the recreational trail cannot even be considered in an application to restore rail service (see the link, above).

While a third-party looking to restore service to a rail banked line has to show that they have sufficient financing and that they can demonstrate sufficient shipper demand to warrant reactivation, I don't see where the entity that agreed to railbanking has to show even that.

I don't claim to be an expert on this, but this is at least what I am seeing.

So we have two examples given in this thread:
1) BART was interested in restoring service on an abandoned line that turned into a recreational path. It never happened.
2) MDOT wanted to restore service on a rail banked line that turned into a recreational path. It happened.

 

[jis]

I am afraid you will need to get in touch with the authors if you wish a learned response. I don't even claim as much expertise in this area as you appear to demonstrate.

 

[sttom]

Interesting. I couldn't find any articles on BART's attempt to reactivate the line. I may have missed something, but Google offered nothing.

That said, which do you think is more likely to be reinstated as an active rail line? An abandoned right of way or a railbanked right of way?

The American Association of Railroads has testified before the STB that the railroads are fans of railbanking. This ought to tell you quite a bit.

The requirements to reactivate a railbanked line are fairly minimal. Even a third-party can request reactivation and all they need to show is that they have sufficient financing and that they can demonstrate sufficient shipper demand to warrant the proposed reactivation. Demand for freight rail service must only be supported by "credible evidence" which means something more than just "vague support."

It sounds like BART was more worried about politics, which is not the fault of the railbanking system. I doubt the result would have been any different had BART sought to reactivate a line that had sat unused for many years, but had not been railbanked.


No, that is not a problem with railbanking. Railbanking preserves the right of way. What you described is a problem with enforcement of an existing right of way. As for things being built close to the right of way... that is at the builder's risk. It is simply not a factor in the determination of whether or not the right of way should be reactivated.

Nobody can force a railroad to railbank a right of way. And yet look at all of the railbanking we have seen over years. In each of those instances, the railroad thought that railbanking was preferable to abandonment or just letting the right of way sit dormant.

My mistake on that one.

Property owners don't assume risk in this country, they deserve to only acrue benefits, at least that's how we as a society act. Reactivating a railways in a reasonably populated area is going to face stiff resistance for any number or reasons, no matter what the legal framework the right of way presently exists under. As mentioned previously, the NCRA still owns a railroad it has no money to reopen on its own, but environmentalists still manage to thwart or at least hinder it's reopening since they see any construction as environmentally damaging.

As for rail banking, I wouldn't be surprised if most local governments that do it railbank under the assumption the line will never reopen, but having a trail could be used as a selling point for gentrification. At least in more populated, newly deindustrialized places. Compound this with the basically nothing in the way of public transit funding and it would be a good bet if I were a local politician.

 

[cirdan]

but having a trail could be used as a selling point for gentrification.

Having a potential / proposed / dotted-line commuter or light rail corridor can also be a selling point for gentrification. Even if the realization of the project is still undeterminately far in the future.

In fact one of the reasons people sometimes oppose such projects is fear of gentrification driving up property values and so driving out vulnerable communities.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Austin is finally getting the message as we passed a Milti- Billion Dollar Rail and Transportation Bond Package after turning them down Four times.

The Metro-Plex's ( Dallas and Ft Worth)example with DART,TRE and TexRail really helped the NIMBYs and the Anti-Everythingers see what is possible with Rail in Urban and Suburban areas.

Once completed( it'll probably not be finished in our Lifetimes!), it will help with the projected doubling of the Population( now 2 1/2 Million in Central Texas) and Traffic Gridlock we now experience from a 1950s/60s designed Transportation system.