BISMARCK, N.D. — The state of North Dakota will not become involved in a claim that the state owns a BNSF rail bridge slated for replacement, leading the preservation group that made the contention to say it is “shocked” by the decision.
The Bismarck Tribune reports the Friends of the Rail Bridge group seeks to preserve the Bismarck-Mandan Rail Bridge — parts of which date to 1883 — as a pedestrian bridge; BNSF wants to tear the bridge down and build a new one on the same site. The Friends group has claimed the state owns the bridge, rather than the BNSF, as the result of the transfer of properties from federal to state ownership when North Dakota achieved statehood. In that case, the state would have a greater say on the future of the bridge [see “Preservation group claims state owns aging North Dakota rail bridge …,” Trains News Wire, March 7, 2022].
But the state Attorney General’s office told other state officials that an opinion from the office was not warranted because no state agency is involved in the ownership dispute.
The Friends group said it will “do the best we can with our limited budget and resources” to advance the ownership claim, but wondered, “If the North Dakota attorney general is not going to defend North Dakota’s ownership …. then who [is]?”
BNSF spokeswoman Amy McBeth told the newspaper the group’s claim “seems like one more last-ditch effort” to delay construction of a bridge “that everybody agrees is needed. … FORB’s assertion has no factual merit.” She said the railroad will provide conclusive proof of its ownership to the U.S. Coast Guard, which is involved in the bridge dispute because the bridge is over the Missouri River, a navigable waterway.
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