My article on the Alabama Supreme Court to award the railbed to the property owners here (instead of letting the local governments use it for a rails to trails linear park) is on the internet at http://www.citizenalert.net Look down their categories till you find one on land and I think it is the last article listed there. They have me listed as a "freelance" writer which I don't think my editors at the newspapers I write for will like since I work for them FULL TIME but they did have permission to use the article and didn't change it.

-- Suzy in 'Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), January 10, 2001

Answers

So what's the problem with rails to trails? I think it is a great use of a resource. Wish I had one near my place.

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), January 10, 2001.

JOJ - I notice that you say near your place - how about ON YOUR PLACE. Big difference.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), January 10, 2001.

The primary issue in this case was basic property owners rights that we ALL should be concerned about! Especially all of us who love our homesteads!!! Read the ENTIRE article about it.

-- Suzy in 'Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), January 11, 2001.

Not all railway right of ways are created equal. Some are deeded fee simple real estate while others are merely easements. (If you have a statutory warranty deed to a parcel then you hold fee title to the land.) (Fee is an old english term.) Easements revert back to the underlying owners of the fee title upon abandonment or vacation. Many railroad right of ways are deeded land and may be conveyed just as any other piece of real estate. The difficulty is with the antiquity of many of the records. It is often difficult for land attorneys, title insurance examiners and the courts to determine what the actual status of a particular railroad is: fee or easement? As private corporations, the railroads could hold title to their right of ways in fee, but in some cases the railroads were quasi-government agencies holding only easement rights to the right of ways. A public highway is always an easement with the owners on both sides (usually) holding fee title to the center of the "right of way" (easement).

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), January 13, 2001.

More on rails to trails: This issue has been hotly debated by land professionals for years. If I own a tract of land and grant you an easement for ingress and egress over the tract so that you can access your landlocked tract from the county road, then you have one right over that easement: ACCESS. You cannot build a theme park on it or let other parties use it for access. Easements are not divisable unless expressley stated in the grant of easement. You can't even plant flowers along the edge without my permission. I retain ALL of the other rights to the land. The only right I conveyed is that of access for YOU ALONE to YOUR TRACT ALONE. When an easement is granted to the railroad co. for a railway, it is a violation of the owner's property rights to later convert that to a pipeline, or a trail or whatever. The owner did not convey pipeline rights or recreation rights or any other rights except railroading rights. This is really a constitutional property rights issue. If the government feels they need a trail, then they need to purchase those trail easement rights from the owners whose land the railroad easement crosses.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), January 13, 2001.