LakeATCS wrote:Okay have figured what is going on here. The blurb in the timetable about the new museum switch tipped me off.
NS needed some of the museum property to make this work. Acording to public property records. NS acquired some of the land from the museum on 2017-04-18 for $0. Yeah free.
Parcel Number
20-06-08-207-056.000-012
Alt Parcel Number
06-08-207-056-012
This screams some sort of horse trade. Signal bridge, switch into the museum, perhaps the land in front of the station, for the land needed to put in your new track? Hell maybe the signal bridge stays? Part of a new feature they are putting in?
There is a piece of property owned by the city that was used for the new CP (where the North and South Freight were relocated south).
See the map below. The red line is the outline of property owned by PENNSYVANIA LINES LLC.
I do not see the property you listed but there are two parcels labeled 06-08-206-007-012 ... so I assume the yellow highlighted one is the one purchased.
The city owns the train station, the land with the "Triangle" parking lot at the underpass, the museum and former roundhouse property and the triangular property at Middlebury and Willard St in the upper right of the attachment.
Fun fact: The square property west of the bridge that is just west of the place where NS property extends north is not owned by NS and has a thin strip that extends along the railroad to 9th St.
The switch into the museum replaces one that was removed (the former requiring a see-saw movement). Another case of replicating the service that was there before the reconstruction (and likely required by the FRA unless the city was willing to abandon the connection). The signal bridge is a good donation to the City but I don't believe that was arranged in April.