BandA wrote:If it was abandoned, and they used it for freight, does it become "unabandoned" and now come under the STB, even though paper wasn't filed?
That's a good question and I don't have an immediate answer for that, although the STB (and ICC before that) do (did) have the authority to permit (or compel) service. The county quoted 49 U.S.C. § 10906, but I'm not an expert in that (although I did stay at a Holiday Inn once...).
Apparently, the service was in Kingston proper off of CSX (or Conrail at the time) and did not involve the remainder of the branch (not that it makes much difference here). The customer, service, line and switch have all come and gone and nothing's happened in (roughly) the past 20 years, so for the purposes of ruling on the abandonment issue, I'm guessing the STB will rule all of that operation as moot. The STB isn't interested in whacking someone's pee-pee for some entity's past indescretions (if there were any) unless there is some current or underlying fraud or abuse.
On occasion, the STB must revisit past ICC or STB decisions. These are fascinating cases. In ABE Fairmont (attached), BNSF and a couple of customers asked the STB to unravel a few issues. Two of BNSF's predecessor lines crossed at grade in the middle of flat-as-a-pancake rural Nebraska. Over the years, one of the lines was segmented and cut back and shoved off to a shortline operator (now gone). Line sales and abandonments were (apparently) not handled correctly, and when BNSF went to abandon one segment, it potentially denied access to another (an STB no-no).
My point in bringing this up is the ability of the STB to visit the past and rule on the future. In Fairmont, the STB acknowledged the past imperfections, but ruled accordingly to permit rail operations.
If you are really interested in this stuff, go to the STB website and search for the debacle known as Harsimus Cove in NJ. It's a whopper of a case and involves the Pennsy, Conrail, NS, towns, counties, cities, historical preservation offices, adjacent property owners, the ICC, boatloads of lawyers, officials, lies, deceit, misrepresentations, money, attempted fraud, lots and lots of obfuscation (someone here likes that word), illegal activities and frisky women. The transcripts are somewhat entertaining - there are not many administrative law judges who can quote Blazing Saddles line for line, as far as I know ...