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 Post subject: Re: Saluda is being sold to become a trail
PostPosted: Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:52 pm 

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:55 pm
Posts: 2279
Chris Webster wrote:
Rails to Trails *are* a form of rail preservation.

No, they aren't, at best they are a form of adaptive reuse. Someone here compiled a list of bike trails that have been returned to rail use and could only come up with two I believe, and both of those were short and had a number of caveats.

Below is actual preservation: Wharton TX on the old SP "macaroni" line in the late 1990s and recently (the depot was rehabbed by the town). It now is a vital link in the new CPKC entity, all because it never was formally sold or abandoned despite being long out of service, and so they didn't need to ask anyone for permission to restore the track, nor could any governmental entity block them, other than the STB. If SP had turned this line over to the bike trail people it would never operate as a railroad again. Just off the top of my head, the NS ex- Central of Georgia line in Georgia, BNSF's Stampede Pass in Washington etc. were all held in place while restoration was contemplated and now are operating. But you can bet anything you want that the parallel John Wayne trail (ex-MILW) will not be returned to railroad use even though it was far better engineered than the meandering old NP.


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 Post subject: Re: Saluda is being sold to become a trail
PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:07 am 

Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2022 11:23 am
Posts: 47
PMC wrote:

The bike trail movement is largely smoke and mirrors by NIMBYs and real estate developers, along with governments who crave the property taxes from upscale developments, at the expense of economic activity that helps working class people.


Am I missing some news.... Is there a new auto plant or a new mine or something coming to NC that will necessitate re-opening of the Saluda route? Nope.... I didn't think so.


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 Post subject: Re: Saluda is being sold to become a trail
PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:52 am 

Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2015 11:54 am
Posts: 1773
Location: New Franklin, OH
My two cents: Based on topography, there’s not much space to develop any industries worthy of reactivating that line. It was a major operational headache and steep enough that I’d be wary of running any heritage equipment - wear and tear and all that. It’s only draw would be that it was the steepest mainline grade. Though it might be fun to see how fast you’d go on a speeder trailer….

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 Post subject: Re: Saluda is being sold to become a trail
PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2023 4:45 pm 

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:55 pm
Posts: 2279
NS was considering the line for containers to a newly opening ocean terminal in NC around fifteen years ago (as I recall, it may have been SC), it is by far the shortest route from Ohio and even with the grades saves a ton of fuel. The hangup was that trains really need ECPB brakes on that line and NS didn't want to open a Pandora's box in which they would be asked why their other equipment didn't also have ECPB brakes.

Seems to me that a lot of short-term-itis has developed here recently, a place where we are often dealing with stuff that only exists now because it miraculously was left aside with no real purpose at the time. Not everything needs to have an immediate purpose. See the photo of Wharton TX above, no one knew when that line was embargoed starting in the 1980s that KCS would buy TM, get trackage rights through the UP-SP merger, and then later be bought by CP, and become an important link in the first route between Canada and Mexico, it was an SP secondary route that went the same places as other secondary SP routes. And once it's gone it won't come back.


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 Post subject: Re: Saluda is being sold to become a trail
PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 9:49 am 

Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:34 pm
Posts: 2758
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
How much out of route mileage do you add by going around Saluda?

And how competitive is the parallel ex Clinchfield?

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 Post subject: Re: Saluda is being sold to become a trail
PostPosted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:58 pm 

Joined: Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:26 am
Posts: 26
When the Saluda line was shuttered the traffic moved to the longer Ashville line, with it's famous Old Fort Loops located in the Blue Ridge, east of Asheville.

That line, itself was downgraded in 2020, no longer hosting through trains.

That was the end of anyone thinking that Saluda would ever be reactivated.

I'm happy that I got to see it once and got video of 611 on the mountain.

My video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0np1GJy3fc


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