From rails to trails

~ Hundreds of old railroad beds have been converted to trails in Southern Illinois.

VIENNA, Ill. -- The sign up ahead is a relic from days long past.

"Morse code telegraph at station," it says. The truth is, there's no Morse code telegraph, and the station the sign refers to is no longer a train station.

But the sign remains just outside the entrance to Illinois' Tunnel Hill State Trail at Vienna as a reminder of what the trail once was. Now a bed of crushed limestone raised above the surrounding land, the trail that runs from Harrisburg to Karnak through the famous Tunnel Hill was once a railbed.

Tunnel Hill is one of hundreds such trails scattered throughout all 50 states. They're called rail trails -- trails made from old railroad beds. And since federal law changed to make the process of creating rail trails easier in the 1980s, proponents of the trails have been singing their praises.

"We believe that these corridors are historical connections to our past," said Jennifer Kaleba, communications manager with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. "These were the highways of early America, and these transportation corridors essentially are something the public wants to use and can use again."

RTC is a not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1986 to assist trail organizations and local governments in the creation of rail trails. The RTC does so by providing legal, research and grant-writing assistance to those organizations wanting to start a rail trail.

In its advocacy the organization touts the positive aspects of trails like exercise opportunities and their ability to deliver tourism dollars to small communities.

But RTC isn't the only not-for-profit with an interest in rail trails. Some of them are strongly opposed to rail trails, not because of the trails themselves but because of how they're made. They argue that creating the trails strips landowners of their property rights.

The rail trail movement started as a grassroots effort in the 1960s but really picked up steam with the amendment of the National Trail Systems Act in 1983 to allow a process called "railbanking" to begin.

When a railroad decides to abandon a stretch of track, it can railbank that line, putting it aside for future possible use. When a track is railbanked, a not-for-profit or local government entity can ask the railroad if the line can be converted to a trail.

If the railroad agrees, then the not-for-profit trail group or local government pays compensation for the use of the railbed.

Federal grants are available to help with the cost of trail construction.

Some private property rights advocates see the process of railbanking as a way to usurp the rights of landowners near rail lines. One of those organizations is the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners. The not-for-profit organization used to try to persuade Congress to change the railbanking amendment to include compensation for property owners. Association executive director Dick Welsh said they've given up on that now. Instead, they offer legal consultation to those fighting court battles over land near proposed trail routes.

"We're not anti-trail," Welsh said. "This is a property rights issue, because whether you know it or not, railroads own maybe 5 percent of their right of ways and the rest is owned by the abutting property owners."

Railroads worked out deals with property owners when the lines were built, most of them over a century ago, to use ground near rail lines without taking ownership. Those rights are viewed as easements by the legal system, Welsh said.

When the railroads abandon lines, they lose the rights to those easements, he said. That land used to go back to property owners, but with railbanking that's no longer the case.

However, the court precedent has been set to compensate property owners for their railbanked property, Welsh said. He said the federal government has paid out millions in claims.

For the longest rail trail in the nation, Missouri's Katy Trail, that number reached $5.5 million for about 275 landowners.

The trail is also the object of a current legal battle between the state's attorney general, Jay Nixon, and the Department of Natural Resources.

DNR director Doyle Childers wishes to give away a bridge at Boonville to the Union Pacific railroad. Nixon filed suit against DNR, saying that giving away state property like the bridge to a private corporation is out of DNR's authority.

At the same time, Gov. Matt Blunt is urging Ameren to give the state a rail line near Kansas City to expand the trail and compensate for the Taum Sauk reservoir breach.

In Southern Illinois, the transition from railbed to trail seems to have been an easier, more successful one.

Norfolk Southern railroad gave the 45-mile trail to the state Department of Natural Resources in 1991. The state then purchased the land alongside the railbed at a cost of several millions of dollars.

On its way through Southern Illinois, the trail winds through rocky bluffs, swampy wetlands and rolling farm country. Small towns like Ledford, Carrier Mills, New Burnside and Karnak dot the trail.

For those towns and for trail users, Reynolds said, the trail has been beneficial to the area. "There's not really anything like it in this part of the state," said Tunnel Hill Trail State Park site superintendent Bill Reynolds.

The trail saw about 80,000 users last year. When the trail opened in 2001, those users were mainly from the local area. Now, they come from as far away as Asia and Europe.

"Tourism is so important in Southern Illinois," Reynolds said. "A lot of the industry is no longer here. Tourism is like our factory."

Chandra Anderson, owner of Our Place restaurant in Karnak, has seen the effect. Karnak lies on the trail's southernmost end, and some of the trail traffic comes through her restaurant.

"We meet new people every day," said Anderson. "We've had people from as far away as New Zealand. It's been very positive for our area."

Trains used to bring people to the area and provide a way for local people to go from place to place. Now their old railbeds still do.

Vienna resident Richard Clayton uses a section of the Tunnel Hill Trail as his walking trail almost every day. He walks about 4 miles round-trip. He's been using the trail since it opened.

"It's convenient, very well kept, and I don't have to worry about traffic," Clayton said.

Reynolds said crime isn't really a problem on the trail since it's closed after dark and before sunrise. The biggest worries are horses and ATVs, he said.

Despite that fact, residents near the trail still post signs saying "Keep Out" and "Beware of Dog" to warn the strangers going past their homes.

Outsiders have become a regular sight on the trail, meaning local people see a lot of unfamiliar faces. On Thursday some of them probably saw Chicago resident Fernando Mercado as he biked the length of the trail. It was his first time on the trail. He said he loves the serenity of riding through the countryside on a weekday afternoon.

"The scenery is pretty good, with the tunnel ... and a couple of nice bridges," he said. "And there's nobody out there."

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182