In my neck of the woods a local EDC that leases a line to a shortline operator is planning to discontinue service on the line thru the corporate limits of a town. It is a mixed blessing, because it is a move needed to lure a new company into town and create jobs that have been lost over the past decade. BUT, the double edged sword is this "discontinuance of service. I want to write both the EDC and editor of the local paper and hope some of you folks out there in RYPN land can help:

a) Volume-wise, approximately how many tractor-trailers would it take to equal a standard covered hopper?

b) Volume-wise, approximately how many tractor-trailers would it take to equal a 50' box car?

c) How many Rail-Trails are there in the USA?

d) How many Rail-Trails have actually been converted back to rail?

e) With regards to the STB, what, if any, differences are there in the "abandonment" of a line vs. "discontinuance of service?"

Thanks in advance,

Matt Bumgarner

Happy New Year Matt,

Regarding b. In my part of the woods, it has been explained to me that one (1) center beam flatcar loaded with lumber products removes five (5) tractor-trailer rigs from the Long Island Expressway. We average one or two flatcars on our team track down the street each week. That's a nice reduction of big rigs on the Expessway and our local roads!

Good luck in your campaign.
de Don, n2qhvRMLI

Covered hoppers are usually rated at 4 or 5 tractor trailers depending on the contents and the size of the car. Obviously 4 tractor trailers can not legally carry the weight in a 286,000 car. The weight of the product will often limit the volume a car or truck can haul.

Boxcars are usually rated at 3 or 4 trucks depending again on what they are hauling and the capacity of the car. A high cube car is capable of hauling lots of product as long as it is not very heavy. You may want to base your truck to car ratio on weight rather than volume.

I know of no trails that have seen the rail put back in place and operated. There may be a few but I suspect not many. Putting the track back in place is expensive and not really what the trail people want, not to mention the numbys.

John Bohon

Matt,

You've probably already considered this, but a mention of the wear and tear on the city infrastructure (read streets) caused by increased truck traffic if rail is diverted to highway would be a good angle in support of maintaining service.

Also, volume is not the only way to compare freight cars to trucks. Trucks have load limits, just like freight cars. Someone with better knowledge will have to chime in, but seems I've heard a 40,000 lb limit applies to over the road trucks. If that is true, a 100-ton capacity boxcar should replace 5 max-loaded tractor trailer rigs.

I am not aware of any Rails-to-Trails that have been converted back to active rail. I had hoped to see that happen locally, but a recent agreement between the railroad and the trails group has made that very unlikely.

Here's the STB's homepage: http://www.stb.dot.gov/

and some info that may help answer some questions: http://www.stb.dot.gov/newsrels.nsf/0/a ... enDocument

Hey Matt, wondering why a large company would request rail transport be removed to relocate - do they want to pay more for bulk freight, or just to force everybody else in town to do so?

Perhaps they don't ship any bulk commodities (or anything else) in carload lots, but wouldn't that then also create the side problem of discouraging any other companies from moving to town that do? Long term economic development interests would suggest retaining all the potential options that could be offered to prospect for any business looking for a home.

The L&C just south of the border is in the industrial development business, and simply offers the railroad as a benefit for encouraging that business. Hickory can learn a lot from them.

On another front, is that little 0-4-0T still out in front of the hardware store?

dave

I tried to look up a Rails-to-trail-to-rail a few years ago. As I recall, there was one instance where the rails-to-trails took a railbanked line and spread gravel over it to railhead. About 15 years later it was un-railbanked. It's been so long that I do not recall where this was.
Part of the Rail-to-Trails Conservency charter is to protect the railbanking program from attack

http://www.railtrails.org/whatwedo/trai ... nking.html

concerning rail banking:

http://www.railtrails.org/newsandpubs/n ... nking.html

It does seem dumb that a new business wants the railroad to be removed.
I hope this helps.
Doug

Dave-

Actually, the line in question is the old Carolina & North-Western from Hickory, NC to Lenoir. The Caldwell County EDC bought it from NS about 11-12 years ago and it has been leased and operated by the Caldwell County Railroad ever since, about 22 miles in length.

For those that don't know, for most of the 20th century, the Lenoir/Hickory area was dubbed the "furniture capital of the world" due to the sheer amount of goods made and shipped from here. That crown is now owned by the Chinese, and the area has lost approximately 20,000 jobs in the last 5-7 years as furniture has been wiped out even faster than textiles, which was also a major player around here once.

Anyway, it appears that GOOGLE is moving into Caldwell County with the promise of 200-600 relatively high paying jobs. There are still lots of non-disclosures, etc that are being executed, so specifics are hard to come by. The line runs thru the new property, but I don't know if it will be merely adjacent to the line, or if the line runs thru some proposed building, etc. Maybe they just don't want trains rumbling by and affecting the servers.

But, the bottom line is that GOOGLE is coming and the one shipper on the very end of the line has been convinced and compsenated for dropping their objections to the project and moving to a trans-load facility some 5.1 miles away at the new proposed end of the line. The shortline lessee operator is being compensated annually as well for the loss of revenue.

To all of this, I really have no objection if it helps this truly depressed town. But what I cannot get my finger on is if the service on the line is discontinued then a) Will the track be "railbanked" and left intact, for who knows what 10 years will bring or b) Will it be ripped up and made into a trail, and in reality be cast into oblivion forever.

I am getting conflicting reports on the intentions of the EDC and I hope to influence the former choice rather than the latter. Sentimentally, the Carolina & North-Western means a lot to me. When I did the book on the railroad, the oldtimers I met and came to know over the years became like family to me. They are all gone now, but by extension, the line is still like part of the family, and I'll be d&*mned if I won't try to educate a few people on its value, even as a railbanked corridor.

And Dave, yes, the Alco saddletanker is still in Hickory, under roof.

Thanks,

Matt Bumgarner

It sounds like you may be beating your head against a wall Matt. If a building is to be built over the ROW there is no point in railbanking the rest of the line. You may have a chance to keep the railroad intact if there is a way to relocate the track around the Google site but it will have to be done before the track is removed. While we got 3.5 miles of track rebuilt on the PDRY in SC with relative ease we are very reluctant to give up any track on the A&R that may see future traffic. I frankly have very little confidence in the state of NC spending money to replace a removed track.

You are right to start your efforts before the deal is done. I do not know the traffic count of the customer at the end of the line but I seem to remember there is not a lot of traffic on this line to begin with. I suspect the railroad may well think they are better off not having to maintain the 5 miles of track. If that is the case you will have a hard time selling your case to the locals or the DOT. NC is still a very highway friendly state and a few more trucks on the road is not likely to change many minds. At least it doesn't around here.

Good luck and let us know how this one comes out. By the way, what is the heritage of the saddletanker?

John Bohon

Okay, point of order that I only bring up because possibly--possibly--it might have some bearing:

The Caldwell County RR actually predates the EDC purchase of the line, as in Sept. 1994 they assumed a lease of the Carolina & North Western (second), which started up as a Norfolk Southern Thoroughbred short line in 1990. The EDC purchased the line in mid-1995, according to Ed Lewis' "American Shortline Railway Guide".

I'd be truly curious to hear the justifications of Google to remove service from the line. This sounds way too much like a repeat of the objections of the Mayo Clinic to the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern proposal to build a new main line and upgrade the rest of its line for Powder River Basin coal service. Is this glorified "NIMBYism" or is there actually some realistic objection?

It wouldn't hurt to discreetly remind the EDC powers-that-be that high-paying, high-tech jobs are often candidates for relocation to off-shore sites. Furniture and textiles are not the only vocations that are affected by lower-cost overseas labor markets.

I hope the EDC has some iron-clad covenants in their agreement(s) to protect their investment and the local workers. -- Ray

One thing I've found out the hard way: No matter how trivial or ridiculous the proposal, get everything in writing, AND get a lawyer, AND if possible get a business agent to bargain on your behalf.

I am aware of one non-profit preservation project that found itself in the middle of a proposal to buy the entire line (which had a common-carrier connection at one end and overgrown right-of-way for six miles at the other end) for an industrial-park project. Luckily, the one board member was astute enough to negotiate the deal to a lease agreement, which would have also required the park to install a shoo-fly track around their museum property and bear responsibility for all right-of-way maintenance. The "industrial park" project turned out to be a nuclear waste incinerator proposal, which was very quickly and loudly shouted into oblivion by the NIMBY crowd, but the lease ran on for something like ten years, putting many dollars in the coffers of the non-profit.

Hi,
I have had a little conversation going on with RTC. I post it here FYI.
Doug.

======================================
Doug,

I don't think I quite understood the nature of your initial question.
Indeed, RTC firmly supports railbanking and has been a leader to protect
this important legislation. While we do promote the development of
trails as community assets that promote healthier lifestyles, we also
believe that the highest use for railroad corridors is rail use.
Unfortunately, many corridors are underused. When a community railbanks
a corridor, they enter into an agreement called Interim Trail Use. This
means that if and when the railroad needs to be reactivated, the
integrity of the corridor has been preserved and the railroad company
resumes ownership and operating rights, usually at no cost to the
railroad. If communities could not railbank, the rail corridors would
more than likely be sold to individual landowners and acquisition of the
property for reactivation would be very difficult without provisions
like eminent domain.

I hope this better answers your question. I wanted to clarify our
position on railbanking. Read about our latest defense of railbanking
here:
http://www.railstotrails.org/newsandpub ... _DefendRai
lbanking.html

Take care,
Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: Douglas van Veelen [mailto:hendrikvv@mindspring.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 03, 2007 5:30 PM
To: Kelly Pack; hendrikvv@mindspring.com
Subject: Re: Rails-to-Trails Conservancy: Railfan

Hi,

The issue that needs to be addressed for those on RyPN is the
Rail-Banking
plan and if any rail-banked lines have become operational again. These
are
railfans wanting to keep the rail line from being torn up when there is
an
obvious rail transport need.

I have heard many times that the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy does not
promote the rail-banking system, they just want rails-to-trails. I am
not
sure about this, but your response seems to lean towards a
Rails-to-Trails
mindset only.

Thank you for your timely and nice response, but I am not sure the
Rails-to-Trails is who needs to be contacted here.

Happy New Year and best wishes.

Doug


At 04:17 PM 1/3/2007 -0500, Kelly Pack wrote:
> Douglas, If you or someone you know needs more
information

Douglas,



Thank you for contacting Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and for your
interest
in rail-trails. I appreciate your suggestion to visit the Railway
Preservation News website, and I will be sure to pass it along to other
railroad enthusiasts. If you or someone you know needs more information
for a letter to the editor in support of rail-trails, I would encourage
them to browse through our publications:
http://www.railstotrails.org/whatwedo/r ... /documents.
html
where there is an abundance of information on the numerous benefits of
rail-trails, and guidance on building community support for trail
projects.
If you need further help or more specific information, feel free to
contact us again with details about the location of an abandoned rail
corridor or proposed trail.



Thanks again,

Kelly



Kelly Pack

Coordinator of Trail Development and Outreach

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

1100 17th St., NW - 10th Floor

Washington, DC 20036

www.railstotrails.org



p: 202.974.5148

f: 202.331.9680

e: kellyp@railstotrails.org



Join Rails-to-Trails Conservancys Free Rail-Trail Network

So, specifically, not philosophically, what rail trail has ever gone "back to rail"??? I would really like to see an example of this.....

I will be the first to admit I am not the best-informed about this, but I do not recall ever hearing about railroad use coming back after the track were removed and a trail instituted.

One example I'm a bit familiar with:

In the Mid-Hudson Valley, about 50-60 miles from where I am, Metro-North restored passenger service from Dover Plains north 9 miles or so to Wassaic, NY, over the old Upper Harlem Divison (NYC), in Dutchess County. This track was removed between Dover Plains and points north, including Millerton (10 miles north of Wassaic, and the "big town" in the area) about 1982, and became the "Harlem Valley Trail". At the time of MNCR's plan to put passenger trains back to Wassaic, it became clear to the planners and the riding public that Millerton was the logical end point. I recall the trail folks were dead-set against it, were politically powerful enough to force MNCR to back off, and Wassaic is it now. The parking lot at Wassaic, by the way, is almost always full, and many of the cars have Massachusetts and Connecticut plates.

I note RTC's Kelly says the highest and best use of a rail corridor is as a railroad. Some 20 years ago, when RTC first started, their president would not commit to saying that. In practice, though, trails advocates almost always oppose reactivation of a railroad, and RTC sends supporters to help them. Their general stance is that if a rail line does not see a lot of use, it should be a trail, with the rails speedily removed. We found that when trying to save the disused Castleton to Poultney, Vermont section of the D&H "Slate Picker" line, which had been bought by the state, initially to keep rail service to a coal dealer in Poultney. When the coal dealer sold out to another company, those who had lobbied for saving the track became trail supporters and avoided us. RTC sent persons to a meeting to oppose our plan, which proposed reopening the track with motorcars to start with.

The track was soon removed and the cinder roadbed graded, but other than a few snowmobilers in winter, it sees little use, being overgrown again in some areas, with many fallen trees.