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County, railroad settle lawsuit

By Lisa Majors-Duff
Jackson County and Great Smoky Mountain Railway consented last week to end a 9-month-old dispute over property access rights in Dillsboro.

County officials filed suit against the owner of the tourist attraction last May after a locked gate was erected, blocking access to county property used to grind brush collected at the construction and demolition landfill. The county traces its right to access its property over a railway-owned road off U.S. 19A to an April 1996 meeting, when commissioners gave the road to the railway, and the railway simultaneously granted the county an easement.

In the consent judgment, county officials agreed to maintain the road, and railway owners agreed not to interfere with the county's use of the road.

"There is a gate on the railroad property near old Highway 19A, which does not unreasonably interfere with the use of the easement by the county so long as the county retains a key to any lock on the gate," the document says.

The railway also agreed to pay the county $1,600, the amount lost when an agent of the county was denied access to the grinding lot in March 1999.

"I regret that (the lawsuit) had to happen, but we were back into a corner with no good way out for the citizens of Jackson County," said county Manager Jay Denton.

Great Smoky Mountain Railway was sold in December to American Heritage Railways of Coral Gables, Fla. Malcolm and Joan MacNeill, owners prior to the sale who have remained to manage the company, could not be reached for comment.

Back to Archive: 02/10/00.