After more than three years, Manhattan Beach has emerged the winner in a court battle over a strip of open space that once belonged to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad. The

California Supreme Court ruled last week that land purchased 10 years ago by Manhattan Beach from the railroad for $5 million legally belongs to the city and not to the more than 65 heirs of

the Redondo Land Co., a development firm that granted an easement to the railway company in 1888 but not outright ownership. The heirs maintained the land should have reverted to the land

company and not to Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe when the railroad company stopped using it in 1982. The court ruled that the Redondo Land Co., in deeding the property, meant to dispose of