California Surveyors Forums

Given the following information, and nothing more (though feel free to ask questions) would you be more inclined to hold the following in determining a railroad ROW:

A found stone monument, set in 1910 along the RR ROW, that in my opinion is undisturbed. The stone monument was not set by the railroad, but rather as part of an adjacent subdivision map.

OR

The centerline of the existing railroad, which was constructed in the 1870's

If you choose to hold the stone monument the Cl of the RR will be 0.3' from from the CL of the RR ROW.

If you choose to hold the CL of the existing RR lines, the stone monument will be 0.3' into the RR ROW.

Does the fact that the stone monument was set by a non RR party affect your decision?

This stretch of RR is very very straight for a long, long, way.

If you had to make a decision without any further information, which would you choose?

Have at it....

For those with familiarity with railroads: Do you think the CL of the currently constructed RR likely moved 0.3' over the last 130 years? Or do you think its more likely that the stone monument was set incorrectly?

Interesting Dylan.

I will say that I prefer holding the monument which, if undisturbed, one would think had to have been set in the location that people at that time accepted as the right of way. I have a hard time rejecting that monument for todays rails.

If "a long, long way" is miles, and assuming the RR is senior to the subdivision... I would consider the stone a closing corner.
But that is a bit to assume without doing some scratching about on titles.

Peter and Bryan,

Thanks for your input. Yes, the railroad is straight for several miles. I guess another way to phrase my question:

Which would be a better monument to use to establish a RR ROW from the 1870's: A stone monument set along the ROW in 1910 by someone surveying a tract adjacent to the railroad, OR the centerline of the rails as they exist today?

Since I do not have experience surveying along a RR I am curious if rails along a long straight portion are subject to shifting over the last 140 years by 0.3' or if that would not be expected unless the rails had been intentionally moved.

From one survey I am doing now, involving about a mile of straightaway, I can say I get inconsistencies with the long straight portion of the track when I compare to other evidence.

Unless I make the straight line do some type of odd jog I cannot make the track work in relation to other evidence to my satisfaction. I also get inconsistent T-rail locations that I cannot make all work in a nice line.

Also in the area I am working in, the railroad ties are some new material instead of wood, possibly concrete, but I did not really investigate. I have no idea if the tracks are anywhere close to their original location when I consider they have done significant work to them. Perhaps the work involves them staying perfectly in place, but I cannot accept that to be the case after 100+ years.

I prefer to hold a nice old monument that you found and make the track locations secondary - at least in the area I am in, since things have been significantly improved in the area of my project (i.e. new railroad crossings, ties, station upgrade, etc.)

I am sure you will get a variety of opinion on this one however.

I would be happy to find an old stone that close!

Since most of the rails have been replaced since the 1870's, I would lean towards holding the historical monument, provided there is some acceptable procedure shown on the old subdivision map on how the Railroad right of way was established.

One piece rail replacement projects were big in the 1990's. No more clickty clack rails.

I would research the Act of Congress that granted the land to the RR company. I recently researched an Act of Congress 1876, that stated that the RR Co. owned 200' feet centered on the railroad tracks to be constructed in an area determined by the RR company. The RR Co land grant is senior, they love their land and they have a big stick. The stone monument may or may not have been disturbed, and the RR tracks may have moved, as well. No way to know for sure on either account. I have found old monuments that have been off more than 0.3' that appear not to have been disturbed. I would hold the RR tracks that are in use today. That is the senior party that will not hesitate to swing that big stick of theirs to keep what congress has given them for their use.

Reasearch: Google Act of Congress - Harvard law library.

Thanks again for all your responses.

To be clear, this isn't a jr/sr issue. The RR will get its full 100' R/W, this is a question of what to hold to delineate the R/W.

Also I would assume in this long a section you may have some old buildings that follow this line. It would be beneficial to measure those in relation to the tracks and see how close they fit to get an idea.

Secondary to this, in some areas you have historic streets that run alongside the railroad that were created back in the day. Sometimes there are very old buildings that front the road facing the railroad and you can shoot the face of the buildings and examine how they fit once you establish the railroad ROW and offset the street width.

Curbs are always good to shoot on those streets to see how things fit too. However in some areas they can be irregular based on how a block was developed for industrial use, and not at all historic.

The center of the tracks is a tricky one to use because they do get replaced on a rare occasion. When SPRR sold to Union RR back in the late 90's, they went through and changed ALL the rails in Ventura and Santa Barbara County (and well beyond, but that's the extent of my RR surveys) to the really long ones (1,200 feet or so) and many times laid them in a different spot on the tracks. Some moved a couple of feet. (I know this for a fact because I went back and reshot a couple of jobs after they were done and watched them do the work - it was really amazing!) For this reason you are better off shooting the center of the tracks, then trying to compile some monuments along the right-of-way set by private surveys for adjoining properties and comparing it to your stone. Maybe you'll find a couple that fit with stone and can confirm it's "accuracy". To me, 0.3' for several miles of tracks is not a big error, and is really good actually. It's confirmation that the tracts haven't moved much at all. But if I were to choose, I'd say hold the stone. 1910 is pretty old, and that surveyor may have been using the better location of the tracks back then. In addition, the stone is a artificial monument you know isn't disturbed, but the tracks have a potential to be disturbed every day, for 130 years.


If the line is abandoned it might be less likely to have shifted, but 130 years is a long time for a railroad to go without some maintenance or repairs. On the other hand, there are times when all you have in the tracks...........

Urban or Rural? Downtown or So remote can't get there from here?

Urban-look at reasonable solutions

Rural - 0.3' is damn good.

What about a second mon? You may have the Edge of ROW but what about direction/orientation?

Orientation is easy, cl of tracks.

If you have one monument & alignment you should be able to find additional monuments, especially if the straight section is as long as you say.

Without knowing more, I'd go with the stone for position. For alignment, it's not quite as easy as just going with the tracks. These new tracks may have been laid down perfectly parallel to the old tracks, and the old tracks may have been the original tracks, and those original tracks may have never moved significantly from their original alignment due to settlement of the ballast, retamping, tie replacement, etc., in which case the tracks would be the best indicator of alignment.

The likelihood of the current tracks following the original alignment is fairly remote though. I would locate the tracks because after analyzing everything else, they may be the best remaining indicator, but I would also search out other monumentation, which if in an urban area, would also include buildings of a vintage nearly as old as the RR line.

Charlie Tucker, in his seminar on the subject was quite clear on his opinion of relying on the tracks as monumenting the center of the RW: "DON'T!"

Many of us have done enough surveying around tracks to know that there are times when the tracks (or remains of them as is the case in any part of El Dorado County) are the only evidence with a measure of reliability to the original alignment. But if you have something like an old monument, if you can find that the surveyor related it to the tracks likely to be at the original alignment, or to original RR RW monumentation, that is more reliable, IMO.

In this case, I'd be inclined to think that a surveyor who set the monument 40 years after the RR was built had more and better evidence available to him of the original location of that line than I do today, 140 years after the fact.

Nice video. If the track you're relying on has the concrete ties, 99% chance the original was removed and replaced in the last 20 years.

There were instances on the Alameda Corridor survey I worked on in LA where we used the CL of rail to establish CL and R/W. We also took Memorandums of Oath from the railroad company that stated to us that these tracks were the original tracks and the offset from these tracks to R/W line is XX'.

To add further grist (read: confusion) to the mill, I was talking with the Yolo County Surveyor a few days ago about the track centerline matter, as he's checking a ROS of mine that references the tracks near Davis. Ken happens to be a foamer (the term railroad buffs use in reference to themselves), as well as a docent at the Sac railroad museum and a volunteer track hand at the museum in Fairfield. He related a bit of info -- unsubstantiated, but nevertheless interesting -- that was told to him by a retired SP engineer: that the original SP main line double-tracks were moved 1/2 foot outward from each other sometime in the 1930s or '40s to accommodate the increased width of rail cars. The clearances were reportedly a little too close for comfort, thus the track relocation.

It leaves me in a tough spot, as there aren't any ROW monuments in the area, and a half-foot is hard to find in the old fences (one of which still exists near my survey). I don't think I want to rely on heresay as loose as this bit, but it thows some doubt into my boundary location that I'd rather not have.

.

Great discussion.

This is an urban setting. The area I'm working in does have some zero setback structures, but they aren't very old, probably 1950's or 60's era. Using adjacent streets that run parallel has not proved to have any benefit. The railroad was constructed long before there was any development in the area.

With the amount of questions brought up about the current CL alignment, I think the stone monument I found from 1904 (sorry, I said 1910 in my first post) is the best available evidence of the RR ROW.

Yeah cannot go wrong at this point holding that old monument.

Also set 20 bollards around that mo-fo.

Just a thought but have you asked the railroad company for their maps? They are required to file maps with the County Assessor's Office for assessment purposes and they usually have a great history of grantor - grantee information on them.

Good luck and remember what a great surveyor once told me about boundary determination.
And the answer to your question is "IT DEPENDS"

State Board of Equalization

If you need maps, email this guy - Colin Parich - Colin.Parich "at" boe.ca.gov

There are many maps not filed with the County Assessor that pertain to the RR parcels, since they're assessed by the (as was noted above) SBE.

One point of contact would also be David Yeung at the SBE, he's a Principal Property Appraiser dealing with Transportation. They're in the process of scanning their old maps, so if you're interested in anything that's already been scanned I'm sure it can be "gotten" in a hurry. David can be reached at David.Yeung (at) boe.ca.gov.

As far as using the tracks, I've got to chime in with saying that I'd lend more weight to the existing monument. The tracks themselves are a monument, so you have to consider if you can state that they are the original "monument", or that you can reasonably determine they occupy the position of the original monument. If that can't be determined, yet you're comfortable that the 1904 monument is the original, then the evidence presented in the form of the stone monument is stronger, by my reckoning.

I just contacted them at SBE and Tristan is correct. They are VERY responsive. Got a call a few minutes after emailing.