It appears that “Rail Banking” in Maine has gone into receivership. With the dismantling of the ex-ST/(MEC) line from (+/-) Ellsworth to Ayers Junction, to construct a snowmobile trail, the concept is 'bout dead. Does anyone know the legislation that created the “rail banks” and how the current state administration was enabled to tear it up? The efforts to re-open the ex-ST/(MEC) from Portland (Yard 12) to Freyburg, and on to North Conway, NH are ongoing. How will this project be affected? Did someone lie to us?
Most ‘rail banking’ is governed by the mid-1980’s National Interim Trail Use Act or ‘NITA’, and the mandatory ‘conditions’ that the STB often attaches to a railroad’s petition after that date to abandon a line to implement the Act. Typically, all that does is require that the R-O-W be preserved intact - not the track structure, which can then be removed for salvage/ scrap value, etc. - so a snowmobile trail usually would be consistent with and in conformance with the Act and the ‘trail conditions’.
There may well be supplemental or similar state legislation in Maine, but I’m not aware of any. We need someone familiar with either those laws - or lack thereof - and recent events regarding these projects to inform us enough to be able to answer your other questions.
- Paul North.
Someone here in the Northern VA area was playing with the idea of “retrograding” the W&OD rail-trail park to an active commuter rail line as an alternative to the Dulles Airport Silver Line route. The 70 or so at-grade crossings were mentioned as a severe disadvantage to this route. The line was instead planned to be built at the median of the Dulles Airport Access Road as originally intended in the early 1970s.
The W&OD Trail is one of those “railbanked” lines. There are other railbanked trails that are being re-activated (or, as they say, “retrograded”) as commuter rail lines in our area. The idea is universally opposed by the locals and are always hampered by devastatingly expensive “environmental impact studies.”
To me, the Silver Line to Dulles seems a better idea, anyway. Keep all the transportation noise together.