I read somewhere else somebody said something like freight railroads preserve right of way, but rails to trails is really a nail in the coffin.
What are your thoughts?
I read many opinions that go like “you’ll never see a passenger train, the freight railroad won’t allow it”. For example, Northeast Corridor inland route, or New York-Chicago, places which used to have more than 1 track, yet nowadays don’t seem to have enough right of way to restore any of the multiple tracks that used to be there. Are the anti rail to trail sentiments I think I see in these fora realistic?
There are some railroad rights of way which really have no use or chance of being reused for train traffic. But there are some places where the ROW could become active again. So it is up the the ROW owner to make the call when arranging for a trail by having a clause which would revert the ROW to rail use when and if necessary. Depending on the width of the ROW, of course, could deem a single track to share space with a trail…each segment or each ROW has it’s own properties or situations so that no one answer will satisfy everything. Or everybody.
First you have to determine if the line is even railbanked under federal NITU/CITU status. (far to many people have no clue and the wild goose tales are everywhere)
IF (big IF) the line has NITU/CITU status and is still maintained by a responsible entity known to the STB, a railroad can come back in and establish a freight rail corridor again and the trail has to leave (after being compensated)…If a deed has a reversionary clause or other restrictive clause, it does not apply. (superceded by federal rule)
IF (big IF) the line has NITU/CITU status and is has been “severed” or is not managed by a responsible entity known to STB, the trail is gone and the parcels making up the trail corridor either revert (not all do) or can be legally disposed of.
IF a corridor was purchased without NITU/CITU status, chances are a railroad won’t come back.
One of my assumptions when I hear “rail to trail” is that whatever agreement they get would include a clause that said trail has to give up if the responsible party can put back in rail, which I think is what Mudchicken means. Maybe I’m misinterpreting the internet opinions I read, but ladies and gentlemen, doesn’t it seem like the responses are overwhelmingly “once it goes trail it’ll never go rail”?
Nope. (And most of those responses are poorly informed/ Have no weight.)
That used to be the consensus of opinion that when a rail line was abandoned and the track pulled up it would never come back again. And that dates to long before the concept of rail trails as we know them today. But each piece of railroad right of way is different because of the deeds, the rights, the use, the laws, etc. and what the railroad does with the property. Sometimes utilities would buy the ROW’s to protect and maintain their pipeline or electric lines or telephone lines; sometimes there were buyers who dug up the roadbed to reclaim the coal and dust from years of packing; sometimes a government would use it for a roadway; the list and various possibilities is endless. Abandonment in most of these cases is a legal term rather than a word defined in the dictionary.
One of the arguments I’ve heard from some rails to trails supporters is that it preserves the right of way if ever the need came to replace the tracks. It seems like it’s used a lot when some or part of the right of way would otherwise revert back to the original land owners. I feel that most of the time those using that argument know that, A - It’s very unlikely that the land would ever needed for rail service again, and B - If it actually was needed for rail service again they would fight tooth and nail against restoring it for railroad use.
Lately, I have had a less than favorable view of the trail movement. Mostly because in some cases now they aren’t content with abandoned trackage, but would like to see some active trackage abandoned and converted for their use.
Jeff
Jeff,
Excellent summary.
Mac
Seconded here. Indeed, hostility to industrial uses seems to become more widespread all the time, as if many of us pampered moderns never stop to reflect on all the work, grit and – yes – “pollution” it took to fashion the comfortable life we enjoy today.
When we become too fine for these uses, and more enamored of our diversions than of our work – think a trail for recreation rather than a roadbed for rail – we will have achieved the decadent, second-class status in the world we deserve.
Hard words dakotafred, hard words indeed. But you know what, someone has to say them.
And in the two cases I’m familiar with, a prime goal seems to be getting rid of the tracks. The trail, if it is actually a goal at all, is secondary… These are folks with an agenda that they haven’t shared, hiding instead behind “trails.”
Does anyone know of an instance where rails were restored?
I don’t know of any cases where rail got restored, and I’ve read some folks who use that as an argument against rails to trails, hence my observation that it seems the internet opinions are “once you go trail you’ll never go rail”. But none of that observed internet chatter ever mentions what the possibility for rail restoration would have been without the trail.
My opinion, it’ll go trail BECAUSE there’s no demand for rail, and it probably doesn’t go back to rail because the lack of demand at the conversion time hasn’t improved, so it probably would still have not been rail even if there was no trail.
So who has examples where they think, after years of no demand for rail, that the trail was the impediment that stopped rail returning when rail demand returned?
They definitely have an agenda and trails are just one part of it. The larger umbrella agenda is called New Urbanism. It includes things such as replacing cars with transit, living in high density inner city neighborhood communities where cars are not allowed, cities without suburbs, smart grown, traffic calming, and green roofs, to name a few.
Bicycling and walking are major cornerstones of New Urbanism.
New Urbanism is promoted as better living, but it seems like better living for you according to somebody else who knows more about how you should live, and will thus tell you how to live.
Here is a bit of New Urbanism:
http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/downloads/pinelandsalliance_84.pdf
How about the case in the Adirondacks, subject of a thread on here, in which the rails are still in place but the “trailers” want to actually tear them up rather than allow a tourist pike to expand its operations?
Here is a recent example of where a short section (2 Miles) of a rail-to-trail is being restored to rail:
This was mentioned in Trains NewsWire (but was only identified as rail banked)
Note that, at least in this case, the one restoring the right of way to its original activity has to pay for providing a new trail. Something seems out of balance here.
Sounds like a win-win situation, And if it had not been railbanked and used as a trail, good chance the RoW might have reverted to the landowners and been lost.
dakotafred, you’re not giving enough info to help me determine if anything’s out of balance. What’s the fair price the one restoring the right of way should have paid to restore rail? If the negotiated price plus the cost of providing a new trail is less than it would have otherwise cost then the balance would seem to be in the rail restorer’s favor.
My boss holds a loaded paycheck to my head. Does that mean he’s forced me to work for him?
What are the typical rail to trail agreements? Do they say there’s a buy back option? Do they say the rail authority can kick the trail out without needing to recompense the trailers for whatever investment they had made?
It happened here. About 20 years ago, 30 miles or so of IC track that ran from Covington, La east to a Slidell connection with NS was converted to a trail. The original connection was with the IC main about 25 miles west of here at Hammond, but that portion had been abandoned long before. Not long after the trail was completed, I remember reading that NS was being pressured to abandon some of their track so the trail could be extended.