I'm working on a property adjoining a railroad right of way in downtown Vancouver, WA. The legal description of the property, which I believe goes way back to 1942, calls for the right of way line 50' southwest of the centerline of the main line of tracks. So I've tied the tracks, and they more or less agree with a couple of R/W monuments I found on the NE line of the right of way. But not perfectly.?ÿ ?ÿ
In 2012 the rail line was temporarily re-routed (ie/ a shoo-fly), and the main line tracks taken up, to accommodate the building of a new overpass several hundred feet down line. With the new overpass completed the rail was restored to its original alignment (with new spurs added) .?ÿ ?ÿSo the tracks that exist today are not the same tracks that existed originally, although they seem to be in the same position, at least for the railroads purposes. I should add that the section in question is on the south end of a fairly long straight tangent, and also the the trains never move at speed through this section -it's both a very urban area and adjacent to a port facility and a railyard.
So the question is - are the tracks as they exist today still the best evidence of where they were in 1942? (The right of way monuments I found were set in 1972, and only cover a short section of tracks.) Even if they hadn't been torn up and replaced in 2012, would they be best evidence? How many other times have they been torn up and replaced since 1942?
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I would say the ROW monuments would now be the best evidence, you said it yourself, the tracts were removed.?ÿ They didn't replace one side, then the other side to keep the original location, they removed both sides then waited X years to replace the tracts.
Are you looking for a few tenths or feet?
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This is by the square foot urban property, so hundreths are at issue.?ÿ
I do not think there is anyway you can argue they put the tracts back to within hundredths of the original location. Are the ROW monuments concrete post above ground or caps set flush to the ground or below the ground? I am sure since 1972 they have moved a few hundredths, or maybe just set to a tenth to where they should be.?ÿ?ÿ
Must be some high price land for a few hundredths. When they did the Railroad ROW was it to the tenth or foot?
For those that had to look up shoo fly
https://www.up.com/aboutup/reference/glossary/railroad_terms/index.htm
I would expect that the tracks control, but I know nothing.?ÿ
The monuments, 3 of them,?ÿ are common?ÿ 5/8" iron rods and pipes along about 200'. They make a line +/- 0.5', and said line agrees with the rails to about 0.08'. So I'm not a long way off, but, as I said, this is high priced real estate (it sold this spring for $675,000) and 0.08' is enough to debate about.?ÿ?ÿ
0.08' and hard to say how well the rods were set, and how much they moved over the years, by landowners or Surveyors digging them up.
You may need to go back dig them up again and reshoot them, just be gentle when digging not to move them the hundreths you need.?ÿ
For those that had to look up shoo fly
https://www.up.com/aboutup/reference/glossary/railroad_terms/index.htm
I would expect that the tracks control, but I know nothing.?ÿ
Holding the railroad tracts would be like holding property corners not called for in the deed.?ÿ You would have to prove the new corners you found are in the same location as the previous corners called for in the deed.
Did you ever attend Charlie Tucker's Seminar "Railroad Surveying 101"? If not, it is something anyone in the surveying profession needs to do. A wealth of info on retracing railroad location, R/W's, and How They Measured the survey route,?ÿit was not horizontal, and other things a surveyor needs to know.
The tracks have a way of getting shifted and do not necessarily define where the Right of Way lines are in respect to the center line of the tracks.
Tracts? Tracks?
I am doing a monitoring project for a failed wall adjacent to a railroad. It would be a major problem if the wall totally failed and the tracks slid into the river. To avoid that happening, CSX moved the tracks 11 feet landward in one day, not sure how they did it as I was not there, but it seemed pretty impressive to me. They spent one day before the move clearing the area they were going to move to, as it was at the base of a near vertical rock cut. I surveyed the RR boundary in the area a few years ago for another landslide in the area that took out an access road. At that time I found that there used to be multiple tracks and several different alignments over the years. So it was almost impossible to use the tracks as evidence.?ÿ
If you do not have matching rods and pipes on the opposite side then they are not RR but property monuments. I would say they were set off the RR tracks in the past.
I doubt the rail was ever within 0.08' of anything?ÿsince forever, but vice versa is possible.
Paul in PA
Did you ever attend Charlie Tucker's Seminar "Railroad Surveying 101"? If not, it is something anyone in the surveying profession needs to do. A wealth of info on retracing railroad location, R/W's, and How They Measured the survey route,?ÿit was not horizontal, and other things a surveyor needs to know.
The tracks have a way of getting shifted and do not necessarily define where the Right of Way lines are in respect to the center line of the tracks.
Hey Leonard, your exactly correct - I'm looking at my copy of the manual from that seminar right now. It says the center of the track is NOT the center of the right-of-way.
Did you ever attend Charlie Tucker's Seminar "Railroad Surveying 101"? If not, it is something anyone in the surveying profession needs to do. A wealth of info on retracing railroad location, R/W's, and How They Measured the survey route,?ÿit was not horizontal, and other things a surveyor needs to know.
The tracks have a way of getting shifted and do not necessarily define where the Right of Way lines are in respect to the center line of the tracks.
Hey Leonard, your exactly correct - I'm looking at my copy of the manual from that seminar right now. It says the center of the track is NOT the center of the right-of-way.I
It was in November 2011 when we attended the Seminar if my memory serves me right. I think if it was presented again I would make every effort to go to it again for a refresher.
Here in NY the right of way centerline was monumented, but you will probably never get to check to see if the track work has dug them out.?ÿ Even if the monuments are still there, they are under about 3 feet of ballast, so good luck digging between the tracks and ties. Then there are the permits and insurance hassles of working in the RR right of way.?ÿ It is frustrating if one does not have access to record of old surveys that were done when the monuments were more readily accessible.
Ken
Hey Leonard, your exactly correct - I'm looking at my copy of the manual from that seminar right now. It says the center of the track is NOT the center of the right-of-way.
Except in this case the centerline of the track is specifically called out as a monument of the right of way.?ÿ?ÿ
We all understand the principle that a called for monument, undisturbed,?ÿ is to be held. And further that a properly restored monument has all the dignity of the original. Nevertheless, we get that a restored monument may not be in?ÿexactly?ÿthe same place as the original.?ÿ
While individual rails might move this way or that in use, and when replaced in maintenance, it seems to me that the over all best fit course of over a quarter mile of straight tangent would be constant, or nearly so.?ÿ?ÿ
I'm sure that the 2012 railroad construction surveyors would have made a special effort when restoring the track to extend the existing straight tangent. And they had well over a thousand feet of undisturbed track to line up a few hundred feet of replacement track on.?ÿ?ÿ
So I'm thinking that there is a very good chance that the current track is right were it was in 1942. At least, I think I've made a case for it.
