Town may bring rail company back to court
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

Fire Chief Brenton MacAloney and the members of the Board of Selectmen are discussing taking a railroad company back to court.

MacAloney and selectmen have met in executive session regarding the possibility of taking Pan Am Rail Company - formerly Guilford Rail Company - back to Worcester Superior Court in a new lawsuit to collect reimbursements for the cost of fighting brush fires along the rails.

"The town incurred costs that were attributed to negligence on behalf of the rail road," MacAloney said.

Over the course of the last two years the town has spent about $21,000 fighting forest fires, including one fire that cost approximately $11,000 in manpower, equipment and supplies this spring, said MacAloney. The department can charge a cost for the running of the equipment at incidents like these.

The fire, which started on Monday, April 23, encompassed more than 65 acres of brush off Turnpike Road and spread into Fitchburg. There were nearly 100 firefighters from 30 communities on scene, MacAloney said at the time. The $11,000 in costs represents only Westminster's share of the associated costs, because they can't retrieve costs for other departments.

Under state law, "any railroad corporation which, by its servants or agents, negligently, or in violation of law, sets fire to grass lands or forest lands shall be liable to any city or town where such fire occurs, for the reasonable and lawful expense incurred by such city or town in the extinguishment of the fire."

The law states cities and towns can go to superior court to recover this money.

The town sued the rail company - then named Springfield Terminal Railway Company - in the winter of 2006 for fires that occurred in 2005. The case was fast tracked through the court system and a settlement was reached between the two parties.

The town received approximately $7,000 - about half of what they were seeking - for the reimbursement of the costs. The money went into the town's general fund.

"The taxpayers of Westminster shouldn't have the burden of covering the costs of the burden of a business like the railroad," MacAloney said.

In 2006, the town also took the railroad company to land court under a separate state statute to have company officials clear debris, old ties and grasses from the edges of the track.

"They didn't do 100 percent of it but they did (clear) a good portion of the tracks," MacAloney said. "They still had piles of ties on the tracks east of route 2A."

There are plenty of railroad ties that have gone beyond the embankments, he said.

Earlier this month the Department of Environmental Protection fined the railroad company for improper disposal of the rail ties in Deerfield.

"We are entertaining joining that matter," MacAloney said. "They have disposed of railroad ties in the same manners in our area."