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Environmental cleanup could end Duluth tourist train
Let’s see, the city recognizes the value of the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad to that nascent tourist economy along the river and contributes $20,000 / year but can’t see any demand for the train in the “Trail & Bikeway Plan”. It would seem that given 500 acres there would be room for a 25 foot right of way for both a light use rail line and a walk / bike path which would require a little over 15 acres.
Private enterprise could work around the tracks. I could see two or three weeks to clear the right of way of contaminents…but two or three years?! Typical government.
Mr. Norton; might I suggest that it maybe Superfund managers from away who have not consulted with stake holders. I worked from an American firm till I realized the company was only interested in the next media release to stockholders, it’s the American way.
It isn’t the 500 acre site that is the problem for the trail, it is the long stretches where the rail bed is carved into the hillside along the river with no room for both without either carving into the hill more or building a retaining wall on the river side.
Why would the rails have to go for the cleanup?
The ‘Spandexed’ NIMBYs will win. They make more noise.
My question would be how much money does the bike trail bring in as opposed to how many tourists come and rent motels etc to ride the train and BRING IN MONEY.
The trail advocates are at it again.
Mr Westgate;
As I understand it the site was a coking facility, therefore the contaminate of concern are possibly PAH’s, BTEX and F1 to F4 which would migrate along the groundwater interface. The groundwater flow would be toward the surface water bodies. You can not bioremediate PAH’s both soil and groundwater would be an issue therefore the dig and dump. Thumbnail discussion.
Unfortunately many in government today never rode a train or realize the contribution to the making of America. Tourist trains bring smiles and memories that never change. I witnessed the tracks being torn up in Georgia that carried the President Roosevelt funeral train from Warm Springs-Atlanta when he died to Washington. A missed historical/trourist portion traveling thru small towns.
We get to Duluth about once a year usually for two nights/three days for two main reasons, this railroad and the North Shore/Depot Museum. If this railroad is closed for good we’ll have only one reason to go there so our trips will likely drop to every second or third year. That will be about $500 less tourist dollars spent there by just one couple. So 40 couples essentially account for the city’s $20,000 annual investment. Goodbye.
Here we go again, politicians and bureaucrats wanting to scrap a tourist train line in favor of yet another bike path for spandex-clad granola-munchers!
Politicians, two to three years for a clean-up, picking on a small tourist line. what next!
A spineless politician using biased words on a piece of paper put together by a myopic self-interested group of lobbyist. Nothing new to see here.
Every once in awhile a tuorist railroad gets smart and puts one or two Gondolas into their train and then has a special rate for people with bikes that allows them to bike over to the train and then put their bikes in the Gondola to enjoy a relaxing train ride. When they get back they then bike back to their starting location. It improves the ridership without gutting the railroad for the Spandex crowd.
I worked in a PA steel mill back in the late 60’s. In your wildest dreams you can’t imagine how much pollution and bad waste was deposited in pits, streams and rivers on purpose. We couldn’t clean that site up with a billion dollars. Mother earth will deal with those toxins for all time.I was just a HS grad with enough chemistry to get by, but I and any other thinking being knew it was wrong . I hope somebody made some money because it’s all gone now except for the legacy and hurt for the future.
The LS&M loads their passenger train on track located next to a line operated by BNSF. BNSF services a 24/7 business on this section of track on a daily basis. LS&M has to obtain BNSF dispatcher permission to use the shared BNSF track to gain access the LS&M track going South. It would be interesting to see how the spandex crowd tries to gain access to the LS&M track without trespassing on BNSF property. If the bikers currently use the sidewalk that runs along Highway 61 to get to the LS&M passenger loading site, they can also use the same sidewalk to get to the Boy Scout Camp. I don’t believe there is any bike trail in this part of Duluth that would connect to the LS&M property from the North end, so why take up track to make a bike trail that can’t be accessed? Kind of like a bridge to nowhere, as again, no bike trail exists after the Boy Scout Camp either! To my recollection of the line operated by the LS&M, there are only two short bridges constructed on cement pillars with heavy steel I-beams across a short span of about 10 feet, so I can’t see where bridge maintenance would be a major problem. The two bridges on the shared BNSF line that were washed out a couple years ago have since been replaced.
There is absolutely no obvious reason why a restored L&SM cannot coexist with a line-side bike trail, appropriately fenced as grade separation. Too, it’s probably doable to build an underpass or overpass grade-separation for a bike trail-hiking trail at the BNSF junction. This has been done elsewhere in the US, and makes sense to do here if the city wishes to build-up all of its tourism and locals-access resources. There are state and federal grants monies for such purposes; there just has to be a unified desire and concrete plans put into play to get them.
To my knoledge If the L&SM rushes and puts the right of way on the National register of Historic places because of its age. Then the construction company is forced by law to replace ever inch that had to be moved for the clean up? Please check it out?