On Mon, 08 Sep 2014 08:36:16 -0500, Ignoramus21905
wrote:

On 2014-09-05, wrote:
On Tuesday, August 19, 2014 10:03:34 PM UTC-4, Ignoramus26736 wrote:
As I mentioned earlier, I purchased some old railroad rails on a

private property.


Most scrap yards will not accept rail as 99.999% of it is owned by a
railroad, even on private property, even if it has been out of
service for years.

You might want to find out if the local yard will accept it before pulling it up.

All rail has been scrapped. I negotiated the price with scrap yard
before pulling the rails.

i

That business about the railroads owning abandoned rails has become a
sort of mixed bag. If it's on unused right-of-way but they still have
rights to an easement, the railroad probably owns it. If they abandon
it, the terms of the original easement, and state law,determine
whether the railroad still owns anything on the right-of-way.

It sounds like you're unlikely to encounter any problems in your
situation, but if you ever do a bigger deal like this, you'd better
check with the county land office and see if the land is encumbered or
if there are ancient easements. If there's much money in it, someone
could give you trouble.

We had a bit of a battle over this in my town, over an abandoned
Lehigh Valley coal line that we converted to a "Rails to Trails"
project.

--
Ed Huntress