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I am right now in a battle to save the rail part of a rail corridor where a small number of cyclists don't want to share and are trying every trick in the book to pull of the rails and sell parts of the right of way for development.
The Montour Trail looks beautiful!
Last edited Mon Jun 1, 2015, 11:48 PM - Edit history (1)
Montour Railway started in the late 1800s connecting various mines, mining the Pittsburgh Seam of Coal. which runs south from Pittsburgh. In the 1920s, they expanded in a loop south of Pittsburgh to included several other mines. By the 1980s those mines had been played out and the Railroad was set to be abandoned. The Last President did all he could to transfer ownership of the line to the a Rails to Trail group, which was founded to take over the rail line.
Unlike other Railroads, Montour did NOT own a Right of Way through other's people's property, they own the actual land the railroad ran on. i.e. when the railroad was abandoned it did NOT revert to the owners of the land, but stayed a separate piece of real property.
Thus the Montour has taken 20 years to come up to steam, but could afford to take its time for it owned the land the old railroad ran on. It swings in a semi-circle south of Pittsburgh and its present Suburbs (with some suburbs on both sides of the Trail). It is popular.
Presently the Montour Rails to Trails connects the Great Allegheny passage (Which goes over the Allegheny Mountains to Cumberland, where the Great Allegheny Passage connects with the B&O Canal, which takes you to DC) with the Panhandle Trail that goes to Weirton West Virginia (Across the River from Steubenville Ohio). It is NOT complete, there are a couple of gaps.
The Great Allegheny Passage between Cumberland Maryland and Pittsburgh is COMPLETE:
More on the "Great Allegheny Passage":
http://www.atatrail.org/
The Panhandle Trail is also complete from Walker's Mill, outside of Carnegie PA, through Oakdale PA, where it connects with the Montour Trail to Weirton West Virginia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panhandle_Trail
The Montour has three missing parts:
1. from Clarion (Where it connects with the Great Allegheny passage) to the Library Trestle (http://www.montourtrail.org/news/2015/mayjune2015.pdf The biggest problem was Penndot wanted an at grade crossing of PA 51 in Large PA, when everyone objected to crossing a busy high speed four lane highway at grade, Penndot back down and looking for money to build a bridge over that Crossing. This may take a few years, but the trail to working its path to PA 51.
2. Between the Arrow Head Trail (part of the Montour, but maintain by Peter's township) and Valley Brook road. The bridge to Cross Valley Broke is under construction and will be finished July 31st. This will permit cyclists to avoid US 19.
3. Cecil PA, where Penndot is redoing an intersection, part of the plane is to take the Trail over both roads. This will be over by September 2015.
Thus, except for the Library Trestle to Clairton, the Trail will be open by this fall.
Thus the problem is Clariton to Library PA (According to the US Post Office, Library PA is the only postal designation with "Library" as its name).
Now, the Montour has plans for other expansion. One is to Cannonsburg PA via what was called the Westland Branch of the Old Montour Railroad. Due the Fracking craze a natural gas company wanted to reopen that rail line and the Montour Trail agreed (since they own the land) provided a trail was also built.
The big problem is Clairton to Large to Library. Library to Large is NOT that big a deal, parts of it is already done. In Library, the Library trestle had gone over PA 88, but then turn and another bridge took the old railroad over Pleasant Street in Library PA. The Bridge over Pleasant Street was taken out in the 1970s for it did not meet modern height requirements (you had less then 12 feet between the road surface and the bridge). Presently the plan is to bypass that section of the old railroad using Pleasant street to connect the two sections.
Unlike the rest of the old Montour Railway, parts of this section had been abandoned in the 1970s and sold off. Thus, the present owners have to be bought out or the property bypassed. Some have indicated a willingness to work with the trail. Thus sections of the trail are finished but others have refused or demanded excessive amount of money, and thus the plan is to by pass them. The intersection with PA 51, the main four lane highway in the area, also has to be dealt with. This will NOT be cheap given even Penndot now admits is plan for an at grade crossing is NOT workable.