So, I have a railroad that I've been researching. Found what I need. Ordered a copy of the current Railroad map from Bartlett & West to make sure it matches.
Since this was my first time ordering from them, I called to speak with someone about the records that they have in general (for future information and to see what is available).
During my conversation, I was told that BNSF doesn't give out title information, and that no documents are listed on the current maps, and no access (even by agencies will be given to the GIS that they now have). This surprised me, since they now have everything in a nice GIS format, and railroads always used to show that data on their maps. In fact, old railroad maps are where I found many of the ROW dedication document numbers for this particular project.
Of course, I can always do a grantor/grantee search to find these documents, but depending on history, when it was done, etc. this can be an all day affair (per property). If they already have this information indexed, wouldn't it make sense just to give it to us? Seems like it would be in their best interests to make sure that surveyors don't miss a document and screw up their ROW.
Any thoughts from those of you that do a lot of RR research? Seemed odd to me.
Paul
[msg=209967]See this...[/msg]
Has to do with Warren Buffet v. USA
Good Luck Paul,
I do a substantial amount of R/w work for BNSF and it is still like pulling teeth to get any info. And when you do, it is in no organized format so I spend hours going through the PDFs renaming them to match any kind of recording number.
Thanks guys. What a silly situation.