The hashish court pointed to earlier cases in which it had been concluded that the 1875 Act granted only easements, and further noted that the United States had not expressly reserved an interest in itself when transferring land to farms, except that settlers “subordinated” land to railroad control. “We have not been informed of any proposal in any land patent, deed, statute, ordinance or legislative history that could reasonably be interpreted to mean that the United States tacitly withheld the costs for land crossed by the right of way when the United States granted such land to family property.” (58) Similarly, the Court did not find that language ordering railways to use highways under Section 43 U.S.C. Share Section 912 or Section 913, which provides for the conclusion that the United States has maintained the royalty for the land on which the right of way is based, after land patents, including that country, have been granted to individuals. Similarly, the court found that Section 913 (which approves highways in the right-of-way up to one year after abandonment) does not weaken the position of landowners because it requires that U.S. rights be transferred to the private owner. However, this reasoning does not seem to take sufficient account of the fact that if the United States could validly legislate regarding the one-year time limit for the establishment of highways, Congress must have had some interest in the right-of-way. As discussed above with respect to rail rights of way validation regulations, Congress has repeatedly passed laws based on a legislative or patrimonial interest in terminating rights of way. One of the first cases in which the Supreme Court considered the title of a railway granted land was Schulenberg v. Harriman in 1874, in which the court stated, “A legislative concession functions both as a law and as a transfer of ownership and has the power required by the intent of the legislature.” (13) In view of all the conditions and reservations which the court found in the legislation granting land to the railway concerned, the interests granted to the railway constituted a charge of conditions and that the infringement could only be invoked by the Government as concessionaire.
These subsidies had already been given to individual railway companies in exchange for their commitment to build additional railway lines extending to Western states. A House resolution recorded in 1872 summed up popular opinion at the time: “. The policy of granting subsidies to railways and other enterprises on public lands should be abandoned, and any consideration of public order and equality of justice for the whole people requires that public lands be retained for the purpose of securing property for real settlers and for educational purposes, as required by law. “When the railways closed railway lines, questions arose about the layout of the land within the old rights-of-way. Many individual cases have been resolved in separate legislation. In 1922, Congress passed a general law that provided that the federal railroad`s rights of way over the state would become the property of the neighboring landowner or municipality through which the right of way passed. This law is unclear in several respects – for example, what procedures are sufficient to establish a waiver of a right of way, and what power Congress could provide for the establishment of highways in the right-of-way after the abandonment of the railroad line. In 1988, popularly known as the Rails to Trails Act, Congress decided to fund the rail corridors, keep them available for possible future use as railroads, and make them available for temporary use as recreational trails. The Beres case also involved an 1875 right of way, and the Federal Court of Claims ruled that the right of way granted only one easement, so that when the right-of-way was no longer used for railway purposes, the easement was revoked and no property rights were returned to the United States.
When the underlying land was patented, the court said, the government renounced all of its interests in the land, including all restitution interests. In this case too, neither the years-long orders of Congress based on a vested interest or authority over rights of way were taken into account, nor the wording of section 913, which prima facie makes a provision different from that which would apply if the right of way were a common law easement. Easements generally do not grant the railway company or other party legal ownership of the area covered by the agreement. However, the beneficiary of the easement has the right to assert in court the access granted on the contract, and the party granting the damage may have the damages repaired and maintained in court. For example, a landlord who has granted an easement at the back of her garden to a railway company that has imposed liability on the company for damages can sue if the company has not repaired the lawn damage caused by work on the railway. A railway easement can “run with the land,” meaning that charges and easement rights pass to the future owners or expire on a specific date. The railway company and the other parties may agree to terminate the easement by submitting a notice of termination in the land registers. People who own land next to “abandoned” railway easements – usually land with tracks or facilities that the railway no longer uses – may have a legal right to the abandoned land.
This decision depended on the type of right granted to the original railway company in 1908. Government officials attempted to separate the railway easements from other easements. They asserted that while easements generally leave no interest remaining after abandonment, railway interests represented a separate category of heritage interests. This argument is not unfounded, given the plethora of special laws and common law decisions that define the rights associated with the operation of a railway line.