Abandoned rail lines subject of property disputes

Conservationists, representatives of businesses and landowners whose holdings were bisected when the railroads were built in the last century are scrambling to lay claim to hundreds of miles of abandoned rail lines in New England.

In Maine, state government also is a participant in the effort to acquire property discarded by the railroads.

Although a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago upheld a 1983 law authorizing the conversion of abandoned rail lines to recreational trails, parties representing those who wanted unused track beds returned to families of original owners or those who later acquired their land were cheered by the fact that the high court permitted them to seek compensation for lost property.

The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that the 1983 National Trails System Act was constitutional was tempered by the declaration that injured parties had the right to seek damages for loss of the use of the land by entering complaints with the U.S. Court of Claims.

Vermont landowners Paul and Patricia Preseault challenged the law which allowed railroads, with the approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission, to turn over unused rights of way to local agencies for trails and other recreational uses. They argued that the action represented an illegal taking of land contrary to state law. The state law, they said, required that abandoned rights of way revert to abutting landowners.

The Preseaults were supported by the American Farm Bureau Federation and state farm bureau federations in Vermont and Missouri.

According to Richard Krause, a lawyer for the American Farm Bureau Federation, the decision “shifts the battle from federal district courts to the Claims Court.”

The situation in Maine may be different, however. Steps were taken recently by the Legislature to ensure that state government would have first refusal on any line that a railroad wished to discontinue. The purpose of the legislation was to ensure that communities were not isolated from the nation’s rail network.

Russell Spinney, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation’s Rail Transportation Division, said Wednesday that the only line in Maine that was officially abandoned was the 33-mile section of Guilford Transportation Industries’ Lower Road from Brunswick to Augusta.

The Department of Transportation leased the Brunswick-to-Augusta line with the hope of acquiring it with money that would be authorized in a statewide referendum in the fall, he said.

Spinney said that although many tracks in Maine were not used, neither were they abandoned. “For the most part, they are under embargoes,” he said.

Rail service was suspended under terms of embargo orders on lines from Westbrook to Fryeburg, Lisbon to Lewiston and Newport to Dover-Foxcroft. Train service was stopped recently between Madison and North Anson and lines in Aroostook County between Fort Kent and St. Francis and Caribou and Limestone were closed for the winter.

In a 1985 referendum, Maine voters authorized the Department of Transportation to purchase track between Brunswick and Rockland and Brewer and Calais. The DOT contracted with Massachusetts Central Railroad Co. of Palmer, Mass., to re-establish service on the Rockland branch line and continues to entertain proposals to reopen the Calais line as an operating railroad, Spinney said.