## Facts

- A railroad corridor of roughly 29 miles in Indiana was acquired more than a century earlier through handwritten deeds.
- Many deeds used language granting the railroad “the Land, Right of way and Right of Drainage for its Railway,” with the use tied to railroad purposes.
- Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) reduced and then discontinued rail service on the corridor.
- Conrail removed track and signals and obtained federal authorization to abandon the line.
- Conrail later entered arrangements with a rails-to-trails organization concerning prospective trail use.
- Adjacent landowners filed a certified class action to quiet title to the former right-of-way and sought damages for slander of title, criminal conversion, and criminal trespass.
- The trial court ruled the railroad’s interest was an easement that had been abandoned and quieted title in the adjacent landowners; the intermediate appellate court affirmed.
- The Indiana Supreme Court accepted transfer to review whether the railroad held fee title or an easement and the effect of abandonment.

## Issues

1. Whether the corridor deeds conveyed fee simple title to the railroad or an easement/right-of-way limited to railroad purposes.
2. If the railroad held only an easement, whether the easement was abandoned so that the strip reverted to the adjacent landowners.

## Decision

- The court held that, for the overwhelming majority of parcels, the deeds conveyed only a railroad right-of-way easement, not fee simple title.
- The court held Conrail abandoned the railroad easements by discontinuing service, removing rail infrastructure, and obtaining federal abandonment authority.
- Upon abandonment, the easements were extinguished and the underlying land belonged to the adjacent fee owners.
- The court affirmed quiet-title relief for the landowner class, subject to limited deed-specific exceptions where particular instruments supported fee ownership.

## Legal Principles

- Deed interpretation turns on the parties’ intent as shown by the instrument as a whole and the surrounding circumstances.
- Use of the term “right of way,” especially when linked to “for its Railway” and describing a narrow linear corridor, generally indicates an easement limited to railroad purposes rather than a fee conveyance.
- Warranty and conveyance language (e.g., “conveys and warrants”) is not determinative; it can apply to an easement as well as a fee.
- Abandonment of an easement requires nonuse plus intent to abandon, which may be inferred from objective acts inconsistent with continued easement use.
- Cessation of rail operations, removal of tracks and signals, and formal abandonment authorization together support a finding of abandonment of a railroad easement.
- Once a railroad easement is abandoned, it cannot be revived or repurposed by later non-rail uses; the easement terminates and the burden is removed from the underlying fee.

## Conclusion

The Indiana Supreme Court concluded that most corridor deeds granted Conrail only a railroad-purpose easement, that Conrail abandoned those easements, and that title to the former right-of-way therefore vested in the adjacent landowners rather than the railroad or a trail organization.


Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Lewellen, 682 N.E.2d 779 (Ind. 1997)