North Carolina Rail-Trails

North Carolina Rail-Trails works with communities across North Carolina to create trails for public use on active and abandoned rail corridors.

Rail-trails differ from other trails and greenways in several characteristics. The terrain for rail-trails is generally flat or gently sloped because the land was originally engineered for rail use. This makes rail-trails wonderful places to ride a bike and many are wheelchair accessible. Also, rail corridors are usually wide enough to accommodate many different types of trail use: biking, walking, jogging, horseback riding, dog walking, pogo-sticking … you get the idea.

Another positive attribute of a rail-trail is that it actually goes somewhere. Just as trains went from one community to the next, so does the rail-trail, creating a natural link between communities. Today, we can maintain these community links by utilizing existing rail corridors that are so perfectly suited for trails.

 

Does your community have an abandoned railroad? Would you like to have a safe place to play and exercise while preserving your community’s train heritage? Please contact NCRT if you would like us to help you create a rail-trail in your area.

Rail Corridor is the Centerpiece of Large Beltline Project in Atlanta
posted by curt on February 4, 2012

From a sidelink on a recent health article we came across information on the Atlanta BeltLine, a very large, multi-year project taking shape in Atlanta. The project will use  a former rail corridor and tie this into more than 33 miles of multi-use trails in a linear park that will connect 40 Atlanta parks, including approximately 700 acres of existing park land. The multi-use trails include the core 22-mile loop plus various extensions to increase connectivity to parks and trails surrounding the BeltLine. The corridor will also include a light rail system. Planning and organizational efforts have been underway for over 7 years and involves most City departments, Atlanta's mass transit authority and numerous community organizations and businesses. The core loop will facilitate both recreation and commuting since it will conect to a number of mass-transit stops. Due the large size of the Atlanta metro area, this project has a scope and complexity far beyond anything we'll see in North Carolina anytime soon. The project is useful as an instructive example of the many benefits that connective trails can provide to an area. The BeltLine website has links discussing economic benefits, community engagement, reducing congestion and of course the healthy outdoors exercise that users will be able to experience on the corridor and in the parks it connects to. Several maps of the proposed loop and its many connections are also on the site.

Deep River Rail-Trail Moving With New Grant, Recycled Bridge
posted by curt on February 2, 2012

The town of Franklinville has been awarded a grant of $36,000 from Asheboro's Randolph Hospital Community Health Foundation. Franklinville expects to use $30,000 of the grant to go towards bridging Sandy Creek: some of the funds will go towards a short bridge where the creek is narrow, near Highway 64, and the rest will be put towards a later bridge at the site where the rail line used to cross Sandy Creek. The money will help to connect Franklinville to the neighboring town of Ramseur, which is collaborating with Franklinville on the Deep River Rail-Trail. The remaining $6,000 will help to fund a boat landing on the Deep River. The Randolph Hospital Community Health Foundation funds health and wellness projects that focus on one or more of four areas: nutrition, physical fitness, obesity or substance abuse.

At their recent meeting, Franklinville Mayor Perry Conner noted that he expects to issue a request for proposals (RFP) by the beginning of March for work on Phase 2 of the Deep River Rail-Trail. This work will be funded by a Recreational Trails Program grant. In addition, Franklinville received notice from NCDOT that the town will transfer (on paper) an old bridge in Bladen County to Franklinville in the spring; the bridge itself will probably not arrive until 2013. This bridge, part of NCDOT's Bridge Reuse program, is of a size that could be used to bridge Sandy Creek at the original rail crossing site.

 

 

Future Extension of Dunn-Erwin Trail
posted by curt on January 31, 2012

Over the past few months our Exec. Director has been busy with groups in Harnett County interested in creating a 1.5 mile connector trail between the Erwin end of the Dunn-Erwin Rail-Trail and the Cape Fear River Park Trail (a 1 mile trail). This would create 7.5 miles of contiguous trail and connect Dunn and Erwin to the Cape Fear River. The ~16 acre Cape Fear River Park was bought by Harnett County with funds from the Parks & Recreation Trust Fund and is used regularly by walkers, fisherman and canoeists. Bringing the two trails together will increase the usage of both trails and connect the rail-trail to much needed amenities such as a bathroom, picnic tables and a parking lot. On January 24th NCRT facilitated a public meeting in Erwin to gather public input on the proposal and present drawings of the proposed layout. The proposal was well received by the 38 attending, all of whom were trail users. Currently NCRT is working with Erwin in the preparation of applications for a Recreational Trails Program grant (for construction) and an Adopt-A-Trail grant for signage. Funding for this connector trail depends on the results of these pending applications and other sources so at this time there are no firm dates for the project. We'll be reporting on this again here and on our Facebook page as news develops.

Volunteers Have Successful Workday on Deep River Rail-Trail
posted by curt on November 10, 2011

On November 4th, Perry Connor, several volunteers from the Faith Chritian School and Tom Duckwall of Greensboro worked for several hours on various improvement and maintence tasks including: digging a drainage ditch on the upper side of short access trail, removing grass from edges of trail & around the rock, tidying up mulch around information kiosk, sign & bench, raking leaves out of side ditches on the access trail, installing an “Ancient Fish Weir” sign beside the steps, & “Unimproved Trail” sign at Sandy Creek end of trail, and cutting up and removing downed pine logs lying in drainage ditch, & other downed tree just past Harvey’s access road. They were also able to clean up around the fish weir steps & down at river bank and to rake leaves from a large part of trail and some of the side ditches. This is still a fairly short trail but Perry is interested in finding volunteers for future workdays. If you would like to volunteer for Deep River trail efforts, you can reach Mr. Connor at 336-549-4908 or by Email.

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