Norfolk and Western Railway Company v. J. Waselchalk.

The sole issue here is whether a prescriptive right-of-way can be acquired over a public utility’s property, which property is being used for a public purpose.

On March 1, 1851, William B. Potts and Charity S. Potts, his wife, conveyed a strip of land running generally east and west across their farm (the Potts-Stanfield farm) to the South Side Railroad Company (South Side) for the construction and operation of a railroad. Because the strip of land bisected the farm, South Side constructed a crossing that connected the two portions, as required by statute, 1 and that its successor, the Norfolk…