When trains stop rolling, should tracks be preserved or pulled up for bike paths?

Story by Elizabeth Brennan / Dec. 21, 2001

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Former rail line, now the Kokosing Gap Trail in Knox County, Ohio. (Phil Samuell)

Carlos Schwantes says he loves biking on the Chipman Trail, a converted railway on Idaho's western border, and riding the 10 miles between the University of Idaho in Moscow and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

"It's a quiet alternative to the highway," Schwantes says. "Obviously I'd much prefer to see the railways that aren't used anymore have a second life."

Schwantes, now a visiting professor of transportation studies at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, also has his eye on another rail-turned-trail: the Katy, the longest such path in the nation, which runs for nearly 200 miles along the Missouri River.

Each year, more and more former railways are converted to recreational trails. Today there are over 1,000 of these trails in the country, totaling almost 11,000 miles. Groups such as the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in Washington, D.C., work under the "railbanking program," designated by Congress in 1983, to convert abandoned rail lines into interim hiker-biker routes.

But for many preservationists the rails-to-trails trend signifies the end of the working railway. Tracks are pulled up, and even though congressional guidelines say the trails can be converted back to rail lines if the corridor is needed for shipping, it's rare that ever happens, says Paul Hammond, president of the Association of Railway Museums.

"In recent years there's been a lot of working together between Rails-to-Trails and railway museums, but that hasn't always been the case," Hammond says. "If we're trying to keep an active operating railway, it's hard to keep up both—for obvious safety issues."

 

Ohio's Kokosing Gap Trail (Phil Samuell)

Since 1996 there has been a push toward a new kind of preservation: "rails with trails." More than 45 trails now run parallel to a path, and there are about 70 more in the works. Most have a fence or other barrier and at least 50 feet between the tracks and trail, and the tracks are used by very few or slow-moving trains.

Rails-To-Trails Conservancy, which was founded 15 years ago after a massive decline in the railroad industry, started by promoting the conversion of railways into public trails, but has since broadened its focus to include rails with trails, says spokeswoman Karen Stewart.

Trails have increased by 425 percent over the past 15 years mainly because of the lobbying and work done by Rails-To-Trails. Also, although railroad shipping is also up, smaller peripheral lines aren't as important anymore.

"Shippers are using main lines to move freight more than ever," Prof. Schwantes says. "In many cases the feeder lines have outlived their usefulness, and if that's the case, a corridor is excellent for bike paths and jogging trails."

The three approaches of railway preservation—museums, rails to trails, and tourist railroads—should be balanced, Hammond says.

"Most railway museums are more interested in preserving trains and buildings like depots," says Hammond. "With tourist railroads, the primary goal is to give people a train ride. That's not necessarily preservation, but it's very important. It's a great way to bring people out into the landscape without ruining the landscape."

 

Western Railway Museum

The Western Railway Museum in Suisun City, Calif., is a tourist railroad that offers spring wildflower trips along its eight-mile track and rides to its pumpkin patch every fall.

But it's not easy to turn an old shipping line into a lazy ride through the hills of Northern California. Because railroads are a private intrastate commerce, the owners must pay taxes on the land until the tracks are officially designated abandoned. The federal government's Surface Transportation Board approves the abandonment by assessing each situation, says Troy Brady, an environmental protection specialist for the board. The board determines the number of trucks the closure will add to the highway and how it will affect air quality and noise.

Once allowed to "consummate abandonment," railways can be transformed into trails. Depending on the area and the existing surface, the trails may be paved, gravel, or packed dirt, and they may be urban or rural.

But abandonment does not always seal the fate of the railway. Service ended on Idaho's 70-mile Camas Prairie Railroad last November, and since then local preservationists have been in a battle to save the "railroad on stilts," whose dramatic trestles are set to be removed next spring. Because freight service is so important to the economic livelihood of the town, residents are working to keep the tracks active. The area may have to turn to tourism, says James Hopper, executive director of Preservation Idaho, but because the land is isolated, it's not an ideal candidate for a Rails-to-Trails project.

Capital Crescent Trail (Wayne Phyillaier)

Stewart cites the 11-mile Capital Crescent trail in Washington, D.C., which opened in the mid-1990s, as an example of how this "movement is bubbling up" all over the country. "People are using the trail to commute to work," she says. "These are really valuable tracts of land because they are connecting neighborhoods," Stewart says. "They are connecting homes to schools to parks to shopping areas."

Still, Hammond says, it's more important to preserve the tracks that physically connected towns. "Rails-To-Trails represents a great opportunity to provide for recreation, but I have some concerns when it comes to balancing those needs with railway preservation," he says. "It takes a lot of work, but I think we can have it all."

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