Is there a database anywhere that shows how many miles of RR ROW have been converted to bike trails? I am close enough to the trail on the former Minnesota Zephyr line to throw a rock onto it. I'm guessing the state of Minnesota has spent 10 million dollars on it if not more. I wasn't a fan of the expense of it but now I am as I see how many people get needed exercise,,, and I use it too but not enough.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
Boyd,
While I do not know specifically how many miles of railroad "right of way" are now trails - which is likely difficult to determine - I can speak to some of the issues pertaining to this question in Michigan.
Michigan was built up as a rail center in the 19th century as tracks criss crossed the state in a rail building craze. This followed the canal building craze that preceeded it. Canals were designed to go across the state east to west on each tier of counties north of the Ohio/Indiana border.
As the rail madness in Michigan developed lines were similarly proposed and created to create railroad highways of commerce everywhere they were needed and to each town this came as blessed news.
As the American Railroad committment to the nation subsided after World War II with the creation of the Interstate Highway System, rail line abandonment became commonplace.
This included removal of the steel rails, ties and bridges and the abandonment of the property often taken from original land owners by "eminent domain" seizure for public railway need.
In the 1970's the concern arose in the Michigan Legislature that potential growth of the state might involve loss of much need lines of railroad transportation. Consequently the state subsidized some small line rail traffic and also developed a process of "land banking" of the railroad "rights of way" for potential future industrial and public use.
This process involved the permission to abandon rail lines and the giving of one year for any claims of "reparian rights." These were the rights of the original land owners to claim back the lands taken for the railway construction in the first place. After this one year of open legal claim the "reparian rights" would be taken forever by the state. Rail lines in this fashion were "land banked" for future generations.
In the years since the state took this legislative action many challenges to the rail "right of way" have been made and all defeated. Often ajoining land owners have desired to cross these rail lines and not been able to unless former land crossing had been given by lease from the former railroads.
The state has allowed the Department of Natural Resources to set up and prepare the "land banked railroads" for hiking and public use but the primary function of the land to be converted back to railway use is unchanged in spite of many attempts.
The public should remember that no matter how enamored they become of these hiking trails that should corporate railroads desire to reconstruct the rail lines they have the right to do so.
Take for example small towns in Michigan such as Indian River, Cheboygan, and Mackinac which all were home to the Michigan Central Railroad which had land enough through northern Michigan for a 4 track main line. Large central parts of these towns had rail yards that are now fallow ground or have been turned into large parking lots because they cannot be used for building and development.
Mackinac had contested this by putting public streets down the right of way of the railroad from the rail ferry dock thru the former yard which is used for parking of cars of vacation tourists who take the passenger boats to Mackinac Island.
Some have built buildings on the sites of the former Michigan Cental buildings, but I would question the legal "clarity of title' to these lands for building given legal battle. It seems a great deal of playing with the law has been done by some local communities who cannot see clearly the intent of the state legislature in such land banking for future use.
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Hope this helps answer some of your questions about the many ways that different states could handle the use of former railway lands.
Doc
Boyd Is there a database anywhere that shows how many miles of RR ROW have been converted to bike trails?
Is there a database anywhere that shows how many miles of RR ROW have been converted to bike trails?
According to a Wikipedia article, which draws its information from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, at the end of 2015 the United States had 22,107 miles of rails to trails.
According to the Wikipedia article, the longest trail in the U.S. is the 240 mile Katy Trail in MIssouri. When completed the Cowboy Trail in Nebraska will be 321 miles.
I did not go to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy webpage; I suspect it has a lot more information about the rails to trails programs.
I have ridden the Katy Trail in Dallas numerous times. It is laid on a former MKT right-of-way that runs from just north of downtown Dallas through Highland Park to near Mockingbird Station. It is being extended to connect with the trails near and around White Rock Lake. It is a good all weather trail.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
IMHO that 22,107 mile is an optimistic assumption and is realistically considerably less. Some seriously time consuming fact checking and research would have to be done to come up with a real number to show how many miles of NITU/CITU status tracks REALLY exist, how many miles was purchased (in fee or by easement) on a former line abandoned prior to 1976-83 and how many miles has no documentation (plenty) .... Currently the STB cannot tell you how many miles are active rail trails or have active (proper) NITU/CITU status, nor can they tell you completely where rail has gone back (probably something less than 250 miles)... STB and FRA discovered they have a problem when they tried to assemble a set of GIS layer(s) for abandonments and rail trails. The product STB has so far is crude and hardly credible (less than 50% complete) and they don't have the research resources readilly available to finish.
If you want to see how bad it is, look at the Delphi murders thread. That problem is more common than most think. (I've run into it plenty of times... Trails with no basis in fact, many with abandonded negotiations and no NITU/CITU certification - there is a very real problem out there.)
This is somewhat history repeating itself. BLM/GLO does not really know exactly how much federal grant R/W is out there. Despite multiple cries to document the holdings granted to railroads over history, the only data out there are a pair of estimates by DOI/GLO for congress and those had issues. The claims of some historians with a political agenda (and at least two forum posters blindly accepting crap as gospel) are WAG's with no factual basis. The effort required to rigorously collect, check and verify the data is far too daunting.
Dr DThis process involved the permission to abandon rail lines and the giving of one year for any claims of "reparian rights." These were the rights of the original land owners to claim back the lands taken for the railway construction in the first place. After this one year of open legal claim the "reparian rights" would be taken forever by the state.
Someone please provide me with the actual reference or cites - this makes little sense to me.
Are you saying that some analogue of classical 'riparian rights' (which relate to watercourses through property) is being extended to railbanked ROW (for example, giving adjacent propertyholders the usufruct of the adjacent land without interfering with other landowners' access rights to the trail as a whole, or transit of the ROW by the public without trespass restriction?) That would be an interesting doctrine, but I'd sure like to see the relevant precedents and reasoning used for it.
Reading between the lines of what MC and others have said, it's not so much that adjacent landowners or public agencies can't build structures or roads on railbanked land as that they would have to remove any such improvements, at their sole expense and hazard, if the land is returned to railroad service. Where the fun comes in is if, say, an access track to a powerplant is built on a former 200' reserved ROW that has been partially improved or 'trailed' -- how do you route the track, and who pays for rail-trail separation, or security fencing and devices for the benefit of those using the 'rest' of the ROW?
So my question is once these lines have been abandoned, how many have actually been returned to service? I know of several instances but my guess is a very very small percentage.
I see no reason why after a reasonable time frame that an abandoned line should become a candidate to be repurposed.
I know this is considered treason on here, and I risk being called a tree hugger, but practically speaking not everything can be rail banked for ever.
Like the trains magazine article pointed out, did we save to much or to little?
And of course I'm not suggesting an active line should be taken out if service. But let's be real with 20000 plus miles of abandoned rail lines, it might be time to consider finding new life for for some of this mileage.
The RTC (as cited in the Wiki data in an earlier post on this thread) is generally regarded to be the single best clearinghouse for data on the miles of rail trails in the US. However, I would caution that they UNDERCOUNT the actual miles of rail to trail conversions in the US. They generally count the miles of "railbanked" corridors, which are those that have gone through a specific process for the preservation of the rail corridor. It may not include trails built on property acquired through direct purchase from a railroad, for example.
There are trails that have been "unrailbanked" and returned to active rail use, although they are few in number. The technical term for "unrailbanking" is recission.
Fascinating. Michigan seems to have thought this out. In Illinois the conversion of an Interurban to the Prairie Path was fought by adjacent landowners without success. Not sure what happens when the land was acquired by a negotiated agreement with the landowner.
steve m Fascinating. Michigan seems to have thought this out. In Illinois the conversion of an Interurban to the Prairie Path was fought by adjacent landowners without success. Not sure what happens when the land was acquired by a negotiated agreement with the landowner. I'm not sure if the only kind of repurposing is the conversion of the abandoned line to a trail. Case in point the abandoned l&m in northern Ohio. It's seven track yard in Danbury was turned int a housing development and some of the old main line other residential areas.
I'm not sure if the only kind of repurposing is the conversion of the abandoned line to a trail.
Case in point the abandoned l&m in northern Ohio. It's seven track yard in Danbury was turned int a housing development and some of the old main line other residential areas.
Similar development also occurred with the CA&E. While most of the main lines became the Prairie Path, I believe that the Wheaton Shop property was used for a housing complex.
Have concern that RTC numbers are inflated and not checked/vetted. Case in point - New York's Genesee Valley (Canal) Greenway. Claimed as a rail-trail, it was abandoned in 1961-63. Does not qualify, all 80+ miles is on former railroad R/W purchased by the state from PRR/PC, used as a utility corridor and then spun off. Close, but no cigar in the Rail-Trail (NITU/CITU) department.
(stumbled into this nugget while helping a western NY surveyor trying to recreate a boundary line long after the railroad (1963) and predecessor canal (1872) abandoned the corridor.)
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