In 1210, at the height of the bloody Cathar Crusade, Simon de Montfort aimed his siege weapon at the town of Minerve, and the Minerveans called the big trebuchet Malvoisine, or Bad Neighbor, as it pummeled Minerve into submission.
People who live up against corporate properties in the U.S. often feel a good bit like the Minerveans must have felt as they surveyed the monster trebuchet being hauled into place by fifty men or more (not that any of them survived to tell about it).
Today, with corporate interest dominating public discourse, with deep corporate pockets keeping an army of lawyers on retainer, companies find it easy to pummel their neighboring property owners and otherwise do pretty much what they want.
Such are the accidents of life. I'm writing today about one such accident that pits individual landowners against a powerful corporate entitity--indeed, one of the most powerful and important industries today--the railroad.
We've all heard stories from the nineteenth century about the corruption and land dealings involved with the railroad's westward expansion. This has nothing to do with any of that. The railroad involved is Norfolk and Southern and the setting a long-established railway route in Virginia. Come with me across the jump for the history and current dilemma.
The existing railway line dates from around 1880, a long track that today links Baltimore and the West Virginia coalfields with the shipyards at Norfolk. Trains go by day and night, more lately than in previous years, when on average four a day went past. Now they are considerably more.
In 2010, the railroad announced plans to upgrade the current tracks for increased freight traffic, and to install a siding that would allow north- and southbound trains to share tracks. Part of the upgrade involved closing vehicular crossings on the track. And that's where the trouble started.
There has been considerable consternation among neighbors, because by removing the crossings the railroad has also removed the only access available to eight different houses during severe floods. One of those crossing removals--the most vital of the crossings--is being contested in court right now. But another case is, to me, more interesting because of its legal ramifications and what it says about corporate power. To understand, we have to go back a ways.
In the Colonial period, the main roads followed Native American trails, and here the road ran along the nearby river. There it remained until sometime after the Civil War (the records are not especially clear). The road was moved away from the river just a little. If you refer to the map below, the post-war road is labeled "Secondary Road." This post-war road remained the main north-south route through the Great Depression.
An view of the property.
Meanwhile, the housing remained pretty stable. On the property affected in this case, the house marked "Rental House" was a large farm house that dates from the late 19th century. This was the home farm of the R family. Their tenant house was originally built across the railroad tracks to serve the other, eastern, side of the farm. To reach the main road, the tenants traveled the farm lane west, crossing the tracks, going past the farm house, because the main road still ran near the river.
In 1940, a new highway was built well away from the river, and running generally along the railway line. The tenant house was directly in its path, it was moved it to its current location, some 200 feet east of the farm house. Both the farm house and the tenant house used the railroad crossing to reach the new highway, as it was much shorter than crossing the fields to reach the now-old road.
So things stayed for years. In time, the R family sold the farm, but before the patriarch put the land up for sale, he carved out a small parcel of maybe 2 acres, which he deeded to a cousin, the current Mr. R. Meanwhile, the land itself passed through a couple of speculators before it was bought by the neighboring farmer, Mr. B, and added to his farm. The R family farmhouse became a rental house.
A side view of the properties. The rental house is on the left, and the tenant house on the far right. In between are various farm buildings.
In 2010, the railroad announced its intention to upgrade the existing track, add the siding, and close various crossings. The R family, which still owns the tenant house, assumed their crossing was exempt.
They were wrong. While negotiating with Farmer B to buy the rental house, the railroad contacted Mr. R once, offering to buy his house. Mr. R wasn't interested in selling. After a few month of mixed signals, the railroad walked away from all negotiations. One day a few weeks ago, workmen showed up and put up a fence, one that stopped just short of the R driveway. A few days later, another crew came in and tore out the crossing, essentially landlocking both houses, although only the R house is still occupied.
The railroad maintains that, because a deed search turned up no legally established right-of-way (despite more than 70 years of constant use), this is not their problem. They maintain the right-of-way back to the old road still exists, even though it hasn't been used since 1940. Farmer B won't re-grant the old right-of-way back to the R family, which is not really a blameworthy response, since the old road now comes within feet of his new house (see the map).
The family's current solution to the dilemma. The sign reads, "Landlocked by NS Railroad."
The R family has had to resort to parking on the shoulder of a major highway and walking back and forth to their home. Not only is this inherently unsafe for all concerned, it should be noted that, in case of any emergency that requires response, there's no way health and safety could reach the house, not even by helicopter, since there's insufficient clearance on their property. The railroad has threatened to have anyone who crosses the tracks arrested for trespassing but so far no one has called the sheriff. The R's lawyer maintains they have no recourse and there's nothing anyone can do.
I find that hard to believe. I had always been under the assumption that usage itself, over time, establishes right-of-way as firmly as anything encoded in a deed. I also always thought that two property rights superceded every other: no one can reroute a waterway to deprive a property owner of water, and no one can landlock someone else. But when you live cheek-by-jowl against Bad Neighbors, apparently anything goes.
At least they haven't brought out the trebuchets. Yet.