Rails With Trails, a Non-starter

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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As the article below illustrates even being near the ROW can be dangerous. A key reason why the new darling of some local planners the so called "Rails with Trails are a dangerous idea and shouldn’t be entertained. Again, note that this article is not about a track with a trail on the ROW. Still the man and dog involved were very lucky to have escaped with their lives…

LC

Derailment dumbfounds dog-walker just feet away
(The following story by Kirk Mitchell appeared on the Denver Post website on May 14.)

DENVER – The gigantic object falling in front of Bob Small onto the bike trail was so large he thought a train bridge was crashing to the ground.

“All of a sudden, I’m almost underneath the trestle, and I heard a sound like an earthquake,” said Small, a retired telephone company executive. “Debris was flying all over. You can’t run. It’s happening too fast.”

But what Small mistook for a train trestle was the first of 15 freight cars to derail about 1 p.m. Thursday as the train crossed over the South Platte River at Fox Street near Coors Field.

Three of the cars plunged into the fast-moving river, Denver police spokeswoman Teresa Garcia said. No one was injured in the crash, she said.

After witnessing the first car fall, the 58-year-old Small saw a set of train wheels cra***o the ground not more than 10 feet in front of him.

Like dominoes, Small said, other empty cars from the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. train dropped.

The concussions caused the earth to vibrate, he said.

“Large metal pieces landed and flew in all directions,” Small said. “They would have gone right through me.”

Small, who has been staying with his son at the Flour Mill Lofts, was taking his daily 3-mile walk along the bank of the river with his son’s black Labrador, Brandy.

The train was traveling about 10 mph, Small estimated.

"After it happened, we both

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…The “Rails with Trails” idea for planners being dangerous…Local planners, etc…??
Not sure what is so dangerous about rails to trails…maybe I’m taking the wrong meaning from the statement…No matter what would have been in existence below that railroad tressle, with falling railroad cars it would have been distaster for whatever they might have fallen on…As luck had it, they fell on no one so no one hurt or worse…
Rails to Trails as we know them being created in many locations…since the railroad Co.'s are giving up the RoW…at least creates uses for the great space that the public can enjoy…Using the very light grades for walking and biking that would otherwise be “lost” to urban renewal, etc. forever…
“We” here in Muncie have 20 miles of paved ex C&O [CSX]…RoW, with 7 miles more under construction and it is great…pulling in people from a wide area to use it…and as of June 5th we will have a beautiful Trail Head…ex. C&O Depot fully restored to original to go along with it…

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Let’s put signs up on all trails within a mile of a railroad track, including those that haven’t seen a train in decades. It will say “Danger! Falling Trains! With a drawing of Thomas the Tank Engine body slamming a dog walker.

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I saw someone painted that on a viaduct near my work. do we have graffiti artists about?
stay safe
Joe

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I may be wrong but I get the impression that LC is talking about “rails WITH trails” as something distinct from “rails TO trails” – I’m presuming this means a trail adjacent and parallel to an active track? If so, that does sound like an iffy proposition to me…

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…Nora, I believe the situation that spiked this conversation was the train accident in the Denver area and if that is the case the Trail passed under the railroad tresstle perpendicular to it…so I can’t see how that should influence the safety of the trail any more than any other method of travel passing under a railroad overhead.

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And the one of the concrete bridge span overhead that fell on the SUV and killed all three in a family. Still glad cows don’t fly.

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Nora – the problem is with rails WITH trails and, in my humble, it is decidedly worse than iffy – as most of us are aware (both fans and those of us who work on them) ‘things’ do stick out from cars now and then, and ‘things’ do come off and go bouncing around, and, now and then, the whole ‘thing’ comes wandering off the track…

but to me the real problem is keeping the trail users off the track, not the track users off the trail: a continuous fence isn’t likely to be part of the scene, and that’s the ONLY way I’d be even vaguely comfortable with the idea. Pedestrian trespassers don’t even do as well as cars do, if they are on the rails when the train goes by…

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Despite what accidents may happen, I think these trails are excellent. A great way to help get people out to exercise and enjoy the outdoors. If we can also use old depots and such, it is a classy way to “preserve” some of the railroad nostalgia. I think trails next to rails are not a good idea, but rails to trails I like, despite some freak accidents.

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no problem with rails to trails, good buddy, none at all – particularly if the right of way enters, or is kept in, the public domain and care is taken to keep it intact so that when a demand arises for rail service again (it will!) it’s there.

I’m not even sure that the trail in the Denver accident was a rails to trails trail – I suspect it was just a trail. Anyone know? But it must have been just a tad scary, nonetheless!

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I would love a trail next to an active track, as I;m sure others here would. Might get some railfans out of the lawnchair. It would need a good fence though. Non fans would be using the rail as a tightrope or balance beam and not paying attention to their surroundings. As far as protecting the trail users from a derailment, it would take a massive concrete barrier wall, which would make a project prohibitively expensive. Besides life is not without risk, reguardless of what some people think is possible.

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…The photo that I have seen at the scene in Denver indicates to me it was a rails to trails RoW…Not certain but the grading indicated that to me.
As for rails with trails…I’ve never seen any of such…I would think that is something very rare. Here in Muncie…our trail is on the ex CSX RoW and at the Depot and farther out from it is another railroad and it is active…[NS], and they run about 3 to 400 ft. just about parallel before swinging away from each other but they are separated by a wroght iron fience about 6 ft. high. It was two different RoW’s and just happens to be close as it passes the depot. I can’t imagine this is dublicated very often. Trails are constructed on the RoW and after it’s in place there is no more rail activity for most installations.

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Nora is absolutely correct. The concept of “Rails WITH Trails” is completely separate from “Rails to Trails”. "Rails WITH Trails is the new concept of some planners that trails can share the ROW with active rail lines.

LC

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…I can’t imagine any active railroad would EVER agree with a stupid idea like that. I remember several years ago down in the Orlando area they were [probably still are], fighting about installng a light rail system and considered running it along side CSX in the area and the word flared up that the railroad would never adhere to such a plan as it would be too dangerous…And that was another rail transit plan…not a walking path…!

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They won’t voluntarily. his idea has come up in areas where governmental agencies control or own the ROW and are in a position to impose this as a condition of operating the line or an outside group is attempting to assert that because the government owns or controls the ROW they have an obligationo to provide public access for a trail, regardless of the risks…

LC

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…I can’t believe any sane person is propossing such action…but I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised as compared to the news what is actually happening in our world.

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Amen

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There is a Rails WITH Trails in the Dallas area. The little used (1-2 trains per day) former Cotton Belt line from Wyllie to Fort Worth has a RWT segment through some of the cities near the DFW airport. Personally I was against it for safety reasons, however the city planners, whose cities were members of DART (owner of the track) put pressure on the DART board to approve the trail.

WR Watkins, retired member of the DART board

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An absolute nightmare of an idea. DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER IT.

AREMA was asked (by ASCE and AASHTO) to comment on the idea and write a proposed standard for such an arrangement (trail/ live track)…After much discussion (a lot of it heated), the policy to be stated in the manual came down to one sentence: “Trails sharing rail corridors with active rail lines should be discouraged at all costs.” I sat through two of those discussions.

Denver incident involved a trail along the South Platte River thru Confluence Park that crossed under a BNSF(CB&Q) Bridge. The trail has been a headache to the Denver railroads for years with people taking shortcuts over the railroads, cutting down chain link fences and illicit activities. (Denver City Parks is responsible for the trail…it is not rails-to-trails)

RRNUT: You may be responsible but there are plenty of folks who are not. Running rule of thumb is that railroad R/W’s , especially within 50 ft. of an active track are “stupid zones” to the general public, most of whom are deficient in the “common sense” department…

Fences will not stop lading falling off a train at speed or rocks out of a hopper car.

(1) Keep lawyers in the unemployment lines (don’t do it!)[:(!]
(2) Shut the nuts up at NARPO (morons )[:(!]
(3) In the few cases where a line comes back to life, the trail users stupidly cling to the concept that it is theirs in perpetuity, no matter what the deed or contract says…
(4) Planners are absolutely stupid around railroads (an awful lot of civil engineers, architects and surveyors are as well…I spend an awful lot of my workday cleaning up their bad guesses and assumptions.). Municipal ones tend to be the worst (political tenured hacks) and most likely not to think things out.[:(!][:(!][:(!]

'nuf sed - could go on for hours about why trails, etc. are a bad idea around, over or under active rail lines.

[soapbox][soapbox][soapbox]

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Among other problems, add the occasional metal strapping hanging out a boxcar doorway that someone failed to close. That a little more than an ouch.