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RE: Another D... Trail?
Author: Q
Date: 07-07-2007 - 10:21
Kill the trail? What trail?
So Who needs another trail. Such trails have elsewhere actually cost the public more than any rail line repair (a million or two per mile in fact). Why so much - who knows - graft probably! The point is that another trail will not benefit the public any better than a repaired but nevertheless defunct railway.
At least the railway could provide a needed infrastructure for future economic recovery of the region; should anyone actually decide they want that. The trail will only benefit those who are physically fit enough to use it - and even then only rarely if they have an actual job.
So what really is going on here must be that the vulture crowd is circling for another land grab - in total violation of the actual landowner's rights.
The usual procedure when a rail line was built (common for county roads also) was to acquire a R.O.W. easement. Actual title remained with the orignal parcel and its landowner. The usual proviso in such easement deals was that reversion of the easement back to the original land parcel was automatic in the event of abandonment for its original purpose. Note that only a small percentage of rail miles involved land grants or outright purchase. Outright purchase is much more common today however. The abandoning railroad thus does not own the land and has no right to sell the easement for any other use than as a railroad right-of-way. These trails therefore require a whole new purchase of private property - probably by "eminent domain". Eminent Domain for a trail benefiting only a very few! (where have I heard that line before)
Oh! I guess I forgot. In coastal california, property rights have always meant nothing. Of course, it was the handiwork of similar anti-property rights kooks that destroyed the local ecomony in the first place, making it the "Appalachia Of The West" that it now is; destroying all industries, including the NWP.
The first order of business then in renewing the local economy and the NWP is to get rid of the kooks - or at least out-shout them. But alas, the silent majority will always remain silent; until no human being has any rights at all - and certainly no economic means or infrastructure upon which to exercise them on either. Now just wait until they define dis-agreenment with them as "Hate Speech".
Oh! They already do? OOPS
So Who needs another trail. Such trails have elsewhere actually cost the public more than any rail line repair (a million or two per mile in fact). Why so much - who knows - graft probably! The point is that another trail will not benefit the public any better than a repaired but nevertheless defunct railway.
At least the railway could provide a needed infrastructure for future economic recovery of the region; should anyone actually decide they want that. The trail will only benefit those who are physically fit enough to use it - and even then only rarely if they have an actual job.
So what really is going on here must be that the vulture crowd is circling for another land grab - in total violation of the actual landowner's rights.
The usual procedure when a rail line was built (common for county roads also) was to acquire a R.O.W. easement. Actual title remained with the orignal parcel and its landowner. The usual proviso in such easement deals was that reversion of the easement back to the original land parcel was automatic in the event of abandonment for its original purpose. Note that only a small percentage of rail miles involved land grants or outright purchase. Outright purchase is much more common today however. The abandoning railroad thus does not own the land and has no right to sell the easement for any other use than as a railroad right-of-way. These trails therefore require a whole new purchase of private property - probably by "eminent domain". Eminent Domain for a trail benefiting only a very few! (where have I heard that line before)
Oh! I guess I forgot. In coastal california, property rights have always meant nothing. Of course, it was the handiwork of similar anti-property rights kooks that destroyed the local ecomony in the first place, making it the "Appalachia Of The West" that it now is; destroying all industries, including the NWP.
The first order of business then in renewing the local economy and the NWP is to get rid of the kooks - or at least out-shout them. But alas, the silent majority will always remain silent; until no human being has any rights at all - and certainly no economic means or infrastructure upon which to exercise them on either. Now just wait until they define dis-agreenment with them as "Hate Speech".
Oh! They already do? OOPS
