Binkley vs. Reeves: Fairbanks railroad battle royale

With the tourist season rapidly approaching, the fate of the replica railroad for tourists that carries customers to and from Gold Dredge No. 8 in Fox remains uncertain.

A decade-long land rights case at the heart of the Reeves-Binkley feud has reached the stage where each side has offered conflicting plans on how John Reeves can use a 100-foot easement across property on which John Binkley’s family operates the tourist railroad.

As with everything else in this costly case, which the Binkleys started against Reeves in 2012, the warring parties disagree.

Two years ago the Alaska Supreme Court declared that Reeves had a legal easement. The case continues to chug along in an attempt to settle the dimensions.

In December, the Superior Court ordered the Binkleys to submit a detailed plan to show how they would use the easement in a way that is compatible with a plan by Reeves to build a road.

The Binkley family, owners of the Anchorage Daily News, offered a plan that would allow the tourist railroad to survive, while Reeves contends the tracks have to be removed for him to get access to land he owns beyond the dredge.

The Binkley family, who own the property through a company Godspeed, said in a Jan. 2 court filing they have a right to preserve a “world class tourist attraction featuring a small gauge railroad looping through a meticulously recreated historical landscape.”

Reeves can build a road next fall, after the train stops for the season, and finish it by next March, they said.The Binkleys proposed that they install manual gates, staffed by its employees, to close the road when the train passes what they say should be a 60-foot road construction area.

“Roads and railroads are not incompatible, they cross each other all over the country,” the Binkleys said. They said their plan “requires compromises from both parties but also allows both parties to make use of the easement area.”

Reeves responded in a court filing that the Binkley plan won’t work and that the Binkleys can reconfigure their operation to avoid the 100-foot easement entirely.

“My plan is to dedicate the entire easement that is the subject of this litigation,” he said.

As soon as the court injunction stopping him from building is lifted, he said he plans to hire an engineer to get the project moving. Reeves said he will have a contractor clear the easement of impediments.

“This includes the removal of the: berms, railroad tracks, gates, steam point display and any other item located within the easement that does not belong there. These items were placed in the easement after Godspeed blocked my access,” he said.

“I have every reason to distrust the Binkleys. I do not want to deal with them in the future,” Reeves said in the court filing.

He said the Binkleys have enough property at the site to place the train tracks, various buildings and the dredge outside of his easement. He said he moved most of the buildings to their current locations when he owned Gold Dredge No. 8 and developed it as a tourist attraction.

“I personally have not moved a dredge, but I know from personal knowledge that others have moved dredges, both in the past and recently,” he said.

At a three-day trial in 2013, Reeves said that the Binkleys "came in like a thief and stole" his property rights by building berms to block passage.

"We weren't trying to sue you John, but that's what prompted us to take action to try and get the injunction and get the court to decide what is the status of the easement," John Binkley said at the trial seven years ago.