People flipout about railroad being put back into servce

This probably would be better in the "Real Trains" area......

 

Anyway, this goes on all the time. In Northwest NJ there has been talk (if not work) towards re-activating the so called "Lackawanna Cutoff" to allow passenger service from the Poconos in PA (where a lot of people have moved who commute into NJ or  NYC).....there have been all kinds of claims, that the line will be used to haul garbage to PA landfills or toxic chemicals (which I recall in one story I read, was not likely given the grades on that line), and part of it was people whose homes were built next to the old right of way and were afraid of the impact. 

NIMBYs always suck.  America is replete with stories of idiots building housing developments next to airports and racetracks then suing over the noise.  They win a lot, too.

 

I am the the guy that looks for a RR close to the house I want to buy. I commute and like to watch the trains, I am five minutes to the tracks, I can hear them at the grade crossings and reving up to take the grade, music to my ears. We have a lot of folks here that want to live close to the trains, they do not mind the noise in Stafford VA.

A good realtor will alert you to the possibility of something like this happening.  An active RR track will hurt property values for everyone except a train lover.

 

Art

Lotsa flood news on now...who they gonna complain to about building too close to a

river?  I had an aunt and uncle who rented a house on a creek=afloat in the moat.

A greatuncle decorator in Hollywood whose backyard was shaded by a newly erected

apartment house sued, won, retired to Mexico.  Courts aren't rational, but fust come

should be fust served. 

Here in the retirement home my wife and I moved into, a number of people asked for a "track view" rather than the exact same "mountain view"

 

ChipR

The Northwestern Pacific in Marin County California had been closed down for years. No one thought it would ever run. It's now running freight and soon will be running passenger trains. We now live about three blocks from our narrow gauge steam line. I love to hear that little whistle. Four runs on weekdays only. I have never heard a complaint. Don

People in Florida always want to build their homes right next to the water. Then they complain about alligators crawling into their yard. 

when I was a child the Port Reading secondary in NJ was an active line, which went silent around 1970. when I purchased my current home in 1999, the line which is 200 feet from my house began a resurgence of traffic. today Ethanol unit trains run 3 times a week, both loads in and empties out, a container stack train 3 times a week and trash train twice a week. plus all the return trips.

 

Not always the chase.There are alot of realtors care about the money.And ether don,t do checking about near by railroads.Or abandon railroads like I said before.If they don,t pull up the tracks.There is always the change they could start using the track again.

People are as mention before real upset.Does anybody else know of something like this happening?

 

yes, The Morristown & Erie was going to revive the Rahway Valley RR through Union CO. NJ. They wanted to acess the refinery in Linden and the Tank Bulk Facilty in Elizabet... former CNJ Elizabethport yard. NJT was also interested as they could use the tracks to move equipment from the Morris and Essex Lines to their Raritain Valley Line. But alas, the Rahway Valley goes through some hoity toity NJ towns such as Westfield, Summit, & Cranford. Those Nimby's with some $$ put a stop to that... even if the trains were to run only in the daytime.

I've never liked using the term "NIMBY' in a negative sense, even if I do not agree with them on a specific issue. I can't blame someone for addressing issues affecting their own neighborhoods. In my mind their concerns certainly take priority over those of distant railfans and modelers. If putting a railroad back into service is deemed to serve the greater public good then it should occur, over local objection if necessary. Local objections do not always, and should not always prevail, but they should at least be heard and not ridiculed.

 

Some years ago a cogeneration plant that would generate electricity from turbines powered by trash incinerators was proposed in my area. The many residents in the path of the prevailing winds were understandably concerned and many of the local politicians, who represented areas sustaining a flourishing tourist and commercial fishing and shellfishing industry, were against it as well. The investors and politicians backing the project referrred to anyone opposing the project as NIMBYS. In the end the need for the project was found to be exaggerated and it was overwhelmingly defeated. The long-serving primary politician who backed it was soon voted out of office, largely on this issue, and the "NIMBYS" were considered by most to be the good guys. 

I remember reading recently that a railroad was trying to reopen a line that was converted into a trail.  I live along the Northeast Corridor and they are talking about replacing the bridge over the Susquehanna River.  The NIMBY's are already lining up.  I have researched the railroad property deeds and there is a clause in the deed the railroad or it's successors can rebuild the track anytime they or their successors chose.

Some years ago a cogeneration plant that would generate electricity from turbines powered by trash incinerators was proposed in my area

 

Difference being that it was a new project construction. I agree with their gripe but that is a lot different than an existing airport or rail line that was there before dwellings were constructed.

When the CN bought the E,J&E a few years back, there was much opposition from the mayors of the affected towns. Everyone was concerned about the increased traffic. They wrangled a few concessions from the CN, but did not prevent the sale.

In my experience there are two factors that make the "NIMBY" syndrome worse:

 

Too many realtors are incompetent, lazy, or some combination thereof and fail to warn prospective buyers that there is a right-of-way or similar close by that, if reactivated or otherwise developed would be objectionable.  (I acknowledge, that as an attorney, there is that expression people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and the legal profession's house is delicate crystal, I know.)  Sure there are many good realtors too but like everything else today many people are solely worried about making a buck.  And the buyers are too stupid to ask hard questions.

 

Second, too many people are "house poor" and have too much of their personal wealth tied up in a home. This causes these people to lose any sense of objectivity when it comes to things that could impact that home, because it's really all they have.  I am typically not of the "old times were best" mindset -- I think it is horribly over-used -- but people today are much more acquisitive than our grandparents and great grandparents (look at average house sizes, for example) and so they stretch themselves for the dream home.  When something could even vaguely threaten it, they go apoplectic.  We are seeing that now here in DC as the State of Maryland tries to build the so-called "Purple Line."  It is riotous to watch all the normally liberal, pro transit types who populate Chevy Chase now line up to litigate now that the Purple Line might go somewhere near their respective backyards.

 

Human nature.  It's just priceless.

When I was a little shaver, my family was coming back from Virginia Beach (prior to Interstates).  We were traveling US60 through West Virginia to Charleston to visit some relatives on our trip back home.  It was late and my dad was very tired so we stopped at this little hotel, "Mae's Place".  We got to bed and at about 4:00 a.m., the whole place shook and the noise. We looked out the window next to the bed and all I could see was gigantic wheels of a diesel locomotive on the track that was level with the window sill.  It was so close to the window I could touch it if I reached out.  Now that was close.

 

Larry

The old tracks from Johnson City TN to Elizabethton know as the Tweetsie Trail is a on going project turning it in to a recreational trail. Walking, biking, ect.

 

The first addition of thousands of pounds of crushed stone went down recently after all the old track was removed.

 

So the funny now in today's paper is locals are arguing back and forth because the public works department won't let horses on the trail sooooooo funny

There has been some back and forth in my area over the conversion of dead right of way into biking trails. There are a lot of expensive homes whose back yards butt up against the old right of way. Some of the homes were there when the trains were still running, others were built after the line fell into disuse.
Either way, some folks didn't like the idea of people walking / biking along their back yards.

The trail is being built, little by little. I haven't walked the "finished" part, but I have been on some of the untouched right of way. There definitely are signs of kids partying and riding dirt bikes on that section.

I live close to the Oakland airport.  Everyone who buys in our community has to sign documents that the community is located near the airport and that there is noise.  This is part of the Home Owner's Association Rules.  

 

Guess what happens after people move in.

 

My wife and I love our easy access to the airport and have no complaints.  The airport does its best to mitigate noise by routing planes over SF Bay and no flights between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m.  This is part of an agreement with my City, the airport and the FAA.

 

Joe

can anyone tell me what "NIMBY' stands for thanks 

Not In My Back Yard

 

Bonus "BANANA": Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody. You'll hear that one too from time to time.

 

---PCJ

Recent Marcellous/Utica Shale Gas development in Southwestern Pennsylvania has seen part of the Montour RR, (Montour Trial), Right of Way have new tracks laid to a Gas/liquid collection facility, Westland, PA.  The Montour RR has been gone since the early 1980's.  The railroad W&LE (Wheeling and Lake Erie) dealt with the Montour Trail Group, who have exclusive rights to the right of ways.  

Photobucket Picture file.   Montour RR Westland Spur.

 When Wayne Branch was reopened in the early 1990's on the Kenova District of the NS,they actually had to argue with people to remove their mobile homes off the road crossings

 

 

This sounds like some people thought ahead.The rail road people that is.I have read in the newspaper of a chase were it went all the way to the sepreme court.There ruling was those tracks and land belongs to them to do with they see fit.I can see some people puting their house up for sale.But some will try to fight and end up really bad off.

Here in Seattle you get a lot of idiots who move to the eastside to get away from the city and then whine about the deer eating their flowers. Pretty sure the deer have been living in those woods for a few centuries longer than the people. You also get all the people who live east of the Cascades and complain about big government, Washington fat cats, Seattle having too much power, etc. but then come crying to have military aircraft operated by the Federal government and paid for with tax dollars largely raised by people in wealthier urban areas to put out the raging forest fire threatening their "independent" small town. Funny how that works!!! 

It can be hard to use the term NIMBY, in part because sometimes projects are thought up that quite frankly are ill thought out and conceived....but on the other hand, when you have something like a railroad that was already there, or you have the case of an airport where someone put up houses next to the airport then complained about the noise, it gets a bit annoying. There is an airport near where I live, Morristown Airport, that abuts the town I live in, and people there complain about the noise of the planes coming in and taking off, yet that airport has been there longer than most of the surrounding houses have been, so it is a bit crazy to complain about something that predates yourself.

 

On the other hand, I have experienced problems with low flying helicopters flying to a corporate park in the next town over (and I think this real estate firm has a helipad as well), the copters come in too **** low and it is really, really noisy, and in that case, I suspect it is more the pilots deciding to show the passengers the towns below, rather than a necessity, and I have called in noise complaints to my town about it, because it is unnecessary (I would love to get the pilots of one or two of those into a nice quiet place to, um, have a discussion with them....). On the other hand, there was a house just up the block where the people had been living in our town a long, long time, long before the developments and such that were built in the 1950's, and they had chickens and roosters, and I used to love hearing them, but a lot of people used to complain about them, fortunately the town couldn't do anything about it (sadly, they have idiotic laws where you can't have chickens and such), and I used to tell the people complaining I would rather hear the roosters then when they had parties and such and I had to hear the crappy music they player or the inane conversations of their guests (the roosters were a lot smarter)...

Fortunately, in most cases, FRA supersedes local ordinances. When BNSF reactivated/re- built Snoqualmie Pass line the residents who incorrectly assumed the line would never see traffic again were "enlightened." I love these stories almostvas much as the ones about local law enforcement vainly attempting to control train speed by using such questionable techniques as parking a police vehicle with flashing lights on a railroad crossing and then being shocked/surprised when it gets "vaporized" by a freight train. Sorry for the OT. Flame throwers may now disarm their weapons.

Dontcha just love reading about us folks here in the good ol' U.S. of A.???  We're such an interesting, humorous, unpretentious lot!  Always good for an argument or a fight.  Reminds us of how lucky we are to have the opportunity to stand our ground....if but for a little while, anyway....stomp our feet, shake our fist, pound our fist, wag our finger, spew oratorical spittle all over our dissenting neighbor, hire a lawyer, waste money, etc., etc., etc.......

 

And then get teary-eyed, flag-waving, singing off-key at the top of our lungs as a big band plays the National Anthem, then start hopping about, clapping our hands and smiling as big as the crescent moon as the same band strikes up with Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever", and the whole sky lights up with flashes of light and explosive thunder......

 

Just like many of us will do through the next few days, this weekend?

 

Happy, happy, happy!

 

And that's a fact, Jack!

 

Yepper.....good to be an American!

 

KD

The Wisconsin Southern was talking very seriously about converting some rails to trails back into rails in southeast Wisconsin. Namely the Cheese Trail around Monroe. Boy if that didn't cause a uproar in communities which sparked all kinds of studies from environmental impact to financial which said 10's of millions of $$$ would be lost from lack of tourism. 70,000 people a day use that trail??!! Funny as last time I drove my ATV down it I hardly seen anyone.

 

Can't blame WS as that area does need a rr connection. I remember reading about some law that Wisconsin has stating those trails can be reverted back to rr use??   

Having lived in Charlotte for 30 plus years where is the rail line in question???

I did delivery work for a number of years in Charlotte and I was always on the look out for rail lines.....or abandoned lines. Where are they looking to put the line in????

AMEN KD

I am of the opinion that First come first served but the courts don't seem to follow that.

 

And I was under the impression there was a Federal ruling some time back stating no more tracks were to be pulled up, they could be covered but had to remain in place for possible re-activation in need. (Think WW3, trains moving goods and the military like in WW2)

The New York and Atlantic, which operates freight service on the LIRR was going to acquire and reactivate the dormant Garden City freight yard near Mitchell Field, a number of years ago. The only train that used the line before that time was the Ringling Brothers circus during its annual visit to the Nassau Coliseum. Of course,  NIMBYs raised holy ****, with many of them claiming that their real estate agents had assured them that the line was long ago abandoned (it never was).

 

Eventually NY&A acquired the Hicksville Yard instead.

 

PS: Garden City is one of the more affluent areas on Long Island. Hicksville, not so much. 

I didn't know that the opposite of Heaven was a forbidden word here.

Ever hear of rail line used by csx.I have family that live closse by it.This is called the piedmont and northern in gastona to charlotte n.c.Some home owners started to flipout about the trains runing again.Never mind that they knew those tracks were there long before them.Started talking about children in danger from the train.Heres a thought be a parent and watch your kids.And make sure they stay away from the tracks.There  other youtube vids of this.Check them out

I know those tracks! Next time you chase the P&N stop by my buddy's pizza place Market Street Pizza and say hello to Mike!

Hey I like pizza I will take you up on that.Some times smaller pizza places can out do the big pizza chains.

Absolutely. Here where I live we have a refinery a few miles up the road. Its been there since the late 40's early 50's. Its in an area that was sparsely developed back when the refinery was built. Today, the area is built up fairly well. The refinery has been under fire by environmental activists for about two decades. It exchanged hands several times then after Valero it was abandoned and slated to be scrapped. The activists went nuts with joy and threw parties to celebrate their succeeding in running the company out and putting several hundred skilled workers out of a job. Well, PBF refinery purchased the old refinery and started pouring in a ton of money improving the location, installing scrubbers and new equipment to prevent breakdowns and accidental releases of what ever.

 

A few years ago they decided to drop serious money on a rail terminal on their property. They hired a LOT of people, and spent a LOT of money building a huge rail terminal capable to handling hundreds of car loads of Bakken crude. Well you would have thought someone started poisoning newborns. Stories of gloom and doom and massive destruction, and noise pollution came out of nowhere. These dopes bought next to or near a rail line hoping it would never or seldom be used and now they will see multiple 100 car trains rumble through each day. They tried everything from suing PBF claiming they didn't get the correct permits to suing the state claiming they violated every federal environmental law in the book. All of them were eventually tossed out thank goodness. The hand wringers still try to come up with something to harass these people, you'll see them near the perimeter fences with monitoring devices trying to record noise levels and pollution levels. Security is tight now and anyone who stops near the fences is chased away. Security is always there when ever any of the trains have to cross the highways on either side of the facility which are gated and monitored, to keep these idiots from running into the property and vandalizing so they can get evidence that something bad happened.

 

You would think these dopes would be happy that 400 tanker trucks a day were off the highways and these products were being transported in the most efficient and safest manner possible. Sadly, these hand wringers have no life and constantly live in their own contrived state of anxiety.

 

Gandy

Before buying land in an area, do a drive around.  If there is a piece which you have a question, go to the area's land taxing office.  They should give you some idea who owns the land, and there are any zoming issues with it.  They can also be able to tell you if a rails to trail ROW can go back to rail.