PAR train "abandoned" in Oakland for 5+ months

While Mr. Fink #2 has changed many policies at PAR for the better,
it appears that the Mr. Fink #1's policies on public relations, working
with local communities, etc, are still the rule.

Rockingham Racer wrote:Right. No sense in being a good neighbor now, is there? This type of behavior, i.e., an apparent "who cares" attitude, is what gets this excuse for a railroad a bad reputation. This notion is not new; it's been discussed here in the past.

MEC407 wrote:Absolutely, but if that's the case they should've just said so in the beginning instead of ignoring the property owners' repeated complaints for the past five months. Again, basic Public Relations 101: Don't unnecessarily p!ss people off and bring negative media attention to yourself.

The family claims they've been using that crossing for 70-something years and never had any issues until now. Even if it was never written up as an official crossing, they've definitely got history on their side. If it's not official, then the railroad should offer to make it official, rather than just ignoring these people who have apparently made several good faith attempts to work with the railroad to resolve the issue.

I'm sorry if I came across as defending Pan Am's position, I'm not. There's no reason that they can't reply back, and they should have, just to let them know they're aware of the issue.

The family claims they've been using that crossing for 70-something years and never had any issues until now. Even if it was never written up as an official crossing, they've definitely got history on their side.

This however, may be somewhat misinformed (to be clear, I'm not aware of the specific history behind this, or any specific circumstances, I'm just merely speculating). There has never been an event where the railroad has blocked off this "crossing" before (as the line has always been in service before), so the landowners may be misinterpreting that as the railroad being okay with their "crossing". Again, this may not actually be the case, just merely me speculating.

That is exactly it. There are tons of private crossings everywhere - no crossbucks, no whistle posts, not in the TT, etc. The landowners have no easement to get to their property on the other side, they've just been doing it.

The railroad should break the block up nonetheless while the town comes up with a solution on whether they want to accept the crossing.

According to one newspaper link, Cynthia Scarano has been made aware of the problem. So we'll see what happens. The family may not have a right to have a private crossing; I don't know. But at the very least, there's a failure to communicate on the part of PAR, so far. Failure to communicate usually leads to other problems, as well as misunderstandings.