No Hope for Newtown

Regarding Montco's plans to trail-ize the Newtown line: Does anyone know if SEPTA actually owns the land the railroad is on? I've heard it suggested that certain segments of the line are only quitclaim and SEPTA doesn't actually own the land. Most of these sections are in Byrn Athyn and Lower Moreland. I suspect if some landowners found out, that might compromise the right of way once the tracks are gone, not to mention brings into question the legality of SEPTA's lease.

bikentransit wrote:Regarding Montco's plans to trail-ize the Newtown line: Does anyone know if SEPTA actually owns the land the railroad is on? I've heard it suggested that certain segments of the line are only quitclaim and SEPTA doesn't actually own the land. Most of these sections are in Byrn Athyn and Lower Moreland. I suspect if some landowners found out, that might compromise the right of way once the tracks are gone, not to mention brings into question the legality of SEPTA's lease.

SEPTA has absolute ownership of the ROW unless they officially abandon it which they have not done.

There's a breaking news story on pa-tec.org, apparently they somehow got the maps of the railroad. I can't really tell from them if septa owns that land or if it is quitclaim. It does at least tell you who the original railroad got the land from. I'm not sure what absolute ownership means. Do they have deeds to the property or not? Maybe one of the adjacent landowners who wants to take issue with this will challenge that in court?? I guess if SEPTA doesn't really own the land they could lose the ROW altogether once those tracks come up. Wouldn't that be something....

If that were the case, why would SEPTA go through the process of leasing the land?
I'm not sure what the criteria is for a breaking news story, but I'm pretty sure I read much the same as all this years ago in this very same "No Hope For Newtown" thread. It has quite a wealth of information in it, as was always fun to read before it got locked down (repeatedly) by a few overly excitible folks.. What is old, someday becomes new.

bikentransit wrote:I'm not sure what absolute ownership means.

Absolute ownership is ownership UNTIL the railroad OFFICIALLY abandons the line with an abandonment filing to the STB.

Suspension of service does not not constitute abandonment.

The valuation maps indicate that like most railroads, the Newtown line was acquired in a myriad of ways, many difficult to trace now 150 years later. You would have to look up the deeds each railroad parcel refers to for complete understanding, a massive, tedious undertaking.

A particularly amusing example is on map va0627 from the pa-tec website. In the top right corner of the map is a parcel table. You can see that for parcels 3 and 4, the railroad has no record of how they came to acquire that land (held by adverse possession AKA squatter's rights). They may have acquired the land legally and lost track of the deed or agreement, or they may have just built through there without worrying about it. No one knows.

My understanding is that when Conrail took over, they actually condemned all the land of the lines they acquired precisely to avoid these annying title issues. That condemnation process may be the actual legal instrument by which SEPTA now owns the land.

In any case, as others have mentioned, regardless of how the Reading Railroad originally acquired the land, unless SEPTA officially abandons the line through an STB filing, the right of way stays intact.

[Aside: Valuation maps are a lot of fun to examine. They reveal a lot of interesting details about the community they pass through at the time they were drawn and are amazingly accurate - you can lay them over an aerial photo today and they line up almost perfectly. ]

PARailWiz wrote:In any case, as others have mentioned, regardless of how the Reading Railroad originally acquired the land, unless SEPTA officially abandons the line through an STB filing, the right of way stays intact.

What still awes me is that the Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad, aka Newtown Branch, was actually built by the PRR and only acquired by the Reading when PRR lost interest in the line.

glennk419 wrote:Philadelphia, Newtown and New York Railroad, aka Newtown Branch, was actually built by the PRR

I've always wondered what the line would be today HAD it been completed to NYC.

No, the PRR leased it to halt construction. I dug up a map of the proposed full route, i'll have to go find it again if i can.

If they had completed the line into NJ from newtown, it is likely there would have been no big bad PRR after shippers & passengers caught on.

The plan was to connect it somewhere in bound brook to an existing line that was being extended. (i believe that is what became the reading's main nyc-phl line later).

Here's a later map:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... k_1900.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Clearfield wrote:

bikentransit wrote:I'm not sure what absolute ownership means.

Absolute ownership is ownership UNTIL the railroad OFFICIALLY abandons the line with an abandonment filing to the STB.

Suspension of service does not not constitute abandonment.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the STB has no jurisdiction over the Newtown line. It's not on their map. I believe we even asked them a few years back.

Regardless, the deeds would be controlling. You don't need to "officially abandon" a line if you don't own it in the first place.

If it's just an easement, it probably depends on the exact language.

John Scott, PA-TEC wrote:

Clearfield wrote:

bikentransit wrote:I'm not sure what absolute ownership means.

Absolute ownership is ownership UNTIL the railroad OFFICIALLY abandons the line with an abandonment filing to the STB.

Suspension of service does not not constitute abandonment.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the STB has no jurisdiction over the Newtown line. It's not on their map. I believe we even asked them a few years back.

Regardless, the deeds would be controlling. You don't need to "officially abandon" a line if you don't own it in the first place.

If it's just an easement, it probably depends on the exact language.

Why is it sounding like some people actually want to see it revert and never be used by SEPTA again? Seriously.

Why don't you just answer the question? Or maybe you're not because you don't know or because if the truth gets out, the landowners will get wind of it and the line really will be lost for good.

Sounds like is that there is a huge risk taking the rail out as it could revert back to the local landowners because nobody really knows if SEPTA owns this, and the original easements granted were for operation of a railroad, not a bike path, park or anything else. In other words, if SEPTA isn't using it as a rail, the original agreements would be null and void.

Hacker wrote:Why don't you just answer the question? Or maybe you're not because you don't know or because if the truth gets out, the landowners will get wind of it and the line really will be lost for good.

Sounds like is that there is a huge risk taking the rail out as it could revert back to the local landowners because nobody really knows if SEPTA owns this, and the original easements granted were for operation of a railroad, not a bike path, park or anything else. In other words, if SEPTA isn't using it as a rail, the original agreements would be null and void.

In the final analysis, SEPTA, its attorneys, and 'whoever' and the applicable laws will prevail.

Discussing it here is fun, but this forum so far as this subject goes, is operating in a vacuum.

Clearfield wrote:

Hacker wrote:Why don't you just answer the question? Or maybe you're not because you don't know or because if the truth gets out, the landowners will get wind of it and the line really will be lost for good.

Sounds like is that there is a huge risk taking the rail out as it could revert back to the local landowners because nobody really knows if SEPTA owns this, and the original easements granted were for operation of a railroad, not a bike path, park or anything else. In other words, if SEPTA isn't using it as a rail, the original agreements would be null and void.

In the final analysis, SEPTA, its attorneys, and 'whoever' and the applicable laws will prevail.

Discussing it here is fun, but this forum so far as this subject goes, is operating in a vacuum.

Your response sir is non sequitur. That final analysis may be your own, which to date remains baseless.

I'm not even sure what non sequitur is but ok.

@Clearfield: perhaps there's a vacuum here because you stated something as fact (SEPTA's absolute ownership) without being able to back it up. You might also want to consider the odds of a rail line being restored if the line is overgrown, vs. if the line is a trail. The status quo may be more favorable to ultimate restoration. Maybe some people feel that the lid to the can of worms over the deeds is best held shut by the continued presence of the rails.

Just a thought.