Several different events (including a post on this page) left me thinking about rail banking and un rail banking (If you have a better term for putting the corridor back in service, I'd love to know).

As fate may have it a list of reopened railroads was recently placed in my hands.
However no history.


Location Year Banked Year Un banked Length
Arizona Charleston -Douglas 1997 2003 41.5mi
California Visalia-Cutler 1995 1997 26
Idaho Spalding- Grangeville 2001 2003 52
Illinois/ Indiana Browns- Poseyville 1998 2005 22.5
Texas Wichita Falls- Abeline 1996 1998 121.5
Louisiana Naopoleonville Branch 1997 2004 4.7
Ohio Minister-St.Mary's 1989 1990 10
Mississippi Cleveland-Hollandale 1999 1999 16

Does anyone know if any of these corridors were ever fully devoid of rail?
Does anyone know if any of these ever actually had trails on them?

I'd love to know if there was ever a Rail to railbank to trail, back to rail completed.

Thanks in advance,

Ben True

Your list is inaccurate as far as Arizona is concerned.

The complete (and quite convoluted) recent history of the Benson-to-Douglas line, originally part of the El Paso & Southwestern and more recently the San Pedro & Southwestern, is covered accurately in this Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Pedro_Valley_Railroad

I can find NO evidence that the line south of Charleston to Naco and then east to Douglas was ever "railbanked." The rails started being removed in 2007, so it's NOT a case of a line where the track was removed and then relaid; even the actual removal from service (embargoed? abandoned? mothballed?) becomes a "he said, they said" game.

On the sections where the rails have now been removed, there is no formal "trail" in place. This is a part of the country where anyone hiking not fully prepared (LOTS of water, etc.) comes to grief VERY quickly in the wrong seasons, and even in the cooler seasons as well. It's likely being exploited for ATV use, legally or no, but this isn't a region where people want to go, save for the tourist traps of nearby Tombstone.......

Alexander,

Thanks for looking that one up. This list was given to me by a Rail to Trail Supporter to justify a why one should "drink the cool aid" so to speak.

interesting non after 2005.
I suppose also the cost to "un bank" has likely become stratospheric as well.

Activists far too often don't let facts get in the way of a good agenda..........

Not as extensive as what you are probably looking for:
Sometime late in the 1900s, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation removed the Stafford Ave. bridge over the former double track Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley "Laurel Line" interurban in Scranton and replaced it with fill. There was some sort of promise to install a new bridge if rail service was ever resumed. Was this the 1st time in the History of the World that such a promise was honored? The Electric City Trolley Museum & Station's cars now run under a single-track concrete bridge dated 2002! There is also freight service.

You do know that the Capital Crescent Trail, which was made from the former B&O Georgetown Branch in DC, is being re-railed around Bethesda MD for the Metro Purple Line extension??

Also its Kool Aid, not cool aid.

https://www.abandonedrails.com/browns-to-poseyville

It does not show up as active on the official Illinois railroad map: https://idot.illinois.gov/Assets/upload ... ap2018.pdf

I believe it also was part of the defunct Indiana Hi-Rail for a time.

Relaying of track never happened. The line is gone from Browns all the way to Evansville. Parts of it have been built over or plowed.

One case that hasn't been mentioned yet is the former Montour Railroad's Westland Branch which was closed in 1983 and turned into a rail trail, but was leased by an energy company in 2010 and subsequently relaid next to the trail for almost its entire 3.5 mile length.

The Scranton Story had the Laurel Line out of service between Scranton and the ex-Erie at "Virginia." The Commonwealth did replace a bridge with a fill.

Customers were served poorly from Luzerne County.

A new plant up in Minooka and extension of the Trolley Line called for rebuilding the old Crown Ave Tunnel, that new bridge and rebuilding "Virginia" junction with the 1946 Minooka Branch.

Customers are served reliably by DL out of Scranton.

The Trolley Line has been extended to a new shop (not on NPS) at the Ballpark .

Phil Mulligan

Trolley can really roll between the Tunnel and "Virginia" complex.

Tunnel is also named for Ed Miller, photographer and narrator extraordinaire. Ed rode both the last L&WV run and the first ECTM trip, 50 years apart.

Ed was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. Ed narrates Anthracite Traction, his own movies, for Transit Gloria Mundi.

Phil Mulligan