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Do not forget, this line was the "Bridge Route", a bridge between other railroads to the east and west of Vermont.  The only hope for a semblance of a profitable railroad could be achieved if the line had viable east-west connections at each end.  This was a truism of logistics in rural areas that was known even before the railroad was built.

On June 16, 1981, the Maine Central Railroad (MEC) and its Mountain Division, the St. J&LC's eastern connection to Portland was sold to Guilford Transportation Industries, a new holding company headed by financier Timothy Mellon.  Mellon's intent was to compete with Conrail for east-west traffic. By acquiring the Boston & Maine Railroad and the Delaware and Hudson Railway, and connecting them to the MEC, he was able to do so.  

In September of 1983, in order to protect their primary and most efficient east-west route, the one through northern Massachusetts, Guilford rerouted all their east-west traffic onto the Massachusetts route.  The last regular train on the Mountain Division ran on September 2, 1983 as Guilford no longer felt it necessary to feed traffic to the St. J&LC and Guilford's competitors.

In the spring of 1984, with the "bridge" to the east into Portland severed, a major talc plant in Johnson closed down and everyone knows what happened to the asbestos business.  Both the talc and asbestos industries accounted for the vast majority of originating traffic. However, in the span of only six months, the St. J& LC not only lost the eastern end of its bridge, but it also lost the vast majority of its traffic proper.

In June of 1984, another flood did major damage to the line.  The entire state was declared a disaster area so federal money was available to rebuild the railroad--once again.  The St. J&LC continued to survive--on paper anyway.

In 1989, the state chose a new operator of the line who then rather quickly gave up the ghost on the section west of Morrisville.  This, the final operator, ran shorter and shorter trains east to and from St. Johnsbury until the mid 1990s when that segment also became untenable.  It was during this last gasp that wags in the railroad industry said that the old St. J&LC had the longest engine house lead track in the U.S. (50 miles from the Morrisville engine-house to St. Johnsbury, with virtually no traffic in between.)

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the State of Vermont's Senate and House Transportation committees began look more closely at the situation on the St. J&LC.  An entity called Vermont RailLink surfaced with a proposal to operate the line as a railroad.  They only needed some more state money to make it a reality.

After numerous hearings, a high profile marketing campaign, high profile lobbying in the state house and a comprehensive study of the corridor and what it would cost to restore as a marginally functioning railroad,  ($22.1 million[1]), the legislature spoke and spoke loudly.  They wanted it railbanked, the rails and ties pulled out and salvaged for other functioning railroad lines in Vermont and the corridor to become turned over to the states snowmobile organization, VAST, to be developed into a true four-season multi-use trail.  This is just about to happen. 

Now that the history of the corridor has been brought up to date, let me now address some of the other inaccuracies in those previous letters.

In previous letters, the term railbanked was written in a general context of meaning abandoned.  This is NOT true.  Railbanking preserves corridors for future use as railroads and for those who don't agree with this aren't up to date on what is happening around the U.S.

Some railroad rights-of-way contain easements that revert to adjacent landowners when an abandonment is consummated.  However, if a line is railbanked, the corridor is treated as if it had not been abandoned.  As a result, the integrity of the corridor is maintained, and any reversion clauses in the chain of title that could break it up into small pieces are prevented from taking effect.

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A Primer on the Legislative Background of Federal Railbanking Program

As Given in Testimony Before Congress on June 30, 2002

by Andrea Ferster, General Counsel for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

             In 1976, Congress recognized the need to create a national rail bank of railroad corridors as a way of ensuring that our nations built rail corridor infrastructure, which was frequently assembled at great public cost through state or federal land grants or loan guarantees and powers of eminent domain, remained dedicated for transportation purposes, although these corridors were not needed for present or foreseeable future railroad operations.  The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 (4-R Act) provided for mandatory transfers of corridors proposed for abandonment to other carriers, and directed the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which regulates railroad abandonments, to impose conditions barring the disposition of railroad rights of way for 180 days in order to allow for possible transfers for public use, including for trails.  Not withstanding these regulatory tools, the declining fortunes of the rail industry began to result in an increasing loss of railroad corridor through abandonment.  Then in 1980, Congress passed the Staggers Rail Act, which required the ICC to exempt most rail abandonments from regulation.  As a result, the rate of rail abandonments by major carriers accelerated to between 4,000 to 8,000 miles per year.  This alarming rate of rail abandonments made corridor preservation a critical issue of national policy.

                Once the ICC granted abandonment authorization, the railroad was free to remove the tracks and ties, sell the right of way piecemeal to private owners, or simply allow the right of way to be claimed by adjacent landowners.  Our nation's rail corridor system, painstakingly created over several generations, was at risk of becoming irreparably fragmented due to the present high cost of land and the difficulties of assembling right-of-way in our increasingly populous nation.  Today, it would be virtually impossible to recreate this system once the right of way is fragmented, and bridges, tunnels and other costly structures destroyed.

             Alarmed by the potential loss of this valuable national resource, Congress began to look for ways to facilitate the preservation of these corridors for alternative public transportation uses, without interfering with the ability of the financially-beleaguered railroad industry to shed duplicative or unprofitable lines.  The possibility of transferring these surplus rights of way to third parties for use as trails began to emerge as an efficient method of preserving these corridors.

Section 8(d) of the National Trails Systems Act

            Section 8(d) of the National Trails System Act is the legislative centerpiece of the federal Rails to Trails Program...  This law was enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1983 to provide an effective mechanism for preserving railroad rights-of-way for future rail service and for energy efficient alternative transportation use, without imposing additional burdens on rail carriers.  The law allows railroads to transfer inactive railroad corridors to qualified trail managers for interim use as trails, until such time as these rights-of-way are needed for future rail service on the condition that trail managers assume all carrying costs (liability, maintenance, and taxes) of the rights of way.  By pairing railbanking with interim trail use, Congress created a mechanism that allows for the preservation of our

nation's built rail corridor infrastructure for future railroad purposes without burdening the railroads with unwanted property or the communities through which these corridors run with vacant and derelict land.  This process is known as railbanking.

             Section 8(d) (the Railbanking Law) facilitated rails-to-trails conversions by preserving the jurisdiction of the ICC (now called the Surface Transportation Board or STB) over inactive railroad corridors that were dedicated to interim trail use and subject to future reactivation of rail service.  At the same time, the Railbanking Law created an incentive for railroads to enter into interim trail use / railbanking negotiations by allowing the railroad to liquidate its entire interest in the rail line where a qualified governmental or private organization agreed to assume full responsibility for management of such rights-of-way and for any legal liability arising out of such transfer or use, and for the payment of any and all taxes that may be levied or assessed against such rights-of-way.

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                The Railbanking Law has, in fact, been serving its intended function of preserving inactive railroad corridors intact for public use. Since the programs inception in 1983, the ICC/STB has issued 398 railbanking orders, resulting in the acquisition of 180 railbanked corridors in 30 states representing 3,983 miles.  Some 1,552 miles of railbanked corridors are presently open trails, with an additional 1,834 miles of trail under development on railbanked corridors.

                The Railbanking Law has in fact assisted in preserving railroad corridors for active rail use.  For example, in 1993, ICC approved the reactivation of a corridor in Ohio that had been railbanked in 1990.

  Norfolk and Western Railway Co.Abandonment Between St. Marys

and Minster in Auglaize County, OH, Dkt. No. AB-290 (Sub-No. 68),

 9

 I.C.C.2d 1015 (1993).

                Moreover, many more jurisdictions throughout the country have acquired and railbanked rail corridors for future use as light rail, commuter rail, and transit lines.  Examples include the Placerville Branch outside of Sacramento, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Madison County, Illinois.  Without the Railbanking Law, these corridors would likely have been lost for future rail transportation use.

                In 1983, when Congress amended The National Trails System Act to create what we call railbanking, the amendment simply provided the mechanism to accomplish what Congress had previously intended.  According to the legislative history, that was to preserve railroad rights-of-way, protect transportation corridors, and encourage energy efficient transportation use.  Railbanking represents a unique win-win situation, protecting the nations historic transportation corridors, while providing the opportunity for a sensible and beneficial interim use.  The result, while serving to accomplish many ends, was the formation of an effective process for creating rail-trails.

Back to Vermont. . .

Many of the previous letters noted that the railroad has not been given a fair chance and a popularity contest of sorts has ramroded this trail project ahead.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The premise of this argument is that with energetic ownership and creative marketing, a railroad will be able to be weaned from the public dole.  This is not true. 

In my past life, I worked in the railroad industry marketing rail freight and operated southern New England's largest and most successful railroad-owned transloading facility.  A basic rule of thumb for determining profitability in the short line industry is that you need 100 cars per mile, per year, in order to break even.  For the St. J&LC this means it would need 9,600 cars of traffic per year.  The best year for traffic on the St J&LC was 30 years ago and that  saw 7,000 cars. That was when the bridge was functioning along with the talc and asbestos industries.  Those days are gone. 

Another reason why the idea of resurrecting this railroad line hasnt happened is plainly evident by the lack of qualified railroad operators lining up to become the chosen operator.  If this was such a good idea, why haven't the railroads already successfully operating in Vermont, taken an interest in this?  Vermont Rail Systems (VRS) and New England Central Railroad NECR) are very successful and savvy operators.  They, as well as everyone else in the railroad industry knows that the St. J&LC doesn't work anymore. If it did, they'd be there, lining-up to run it.

The earlier letters also noted that there were thousands of miles of snowmobile trails in Vermont along with thousands of miles of bike friendly roads, laying out the premise that there is no need for making a rail-trail on the St. J&LC.  The premise of one of the letters even suggested that if  built out as a trail, there wouldn't be a real benefit to the communities along the St. J& LC.  Both of those arguments are without merit.

First of all, I agree that there are thousands of miles of nice snowmobile trails and even thousands of miles of bike friendly roads in Vermont.  Why even the St. J&LC has made a nice snowmobile trail for most of twenty years so that wouldnt even change.  In addition, quite frankly, most of the 30,000 or so bike tourists who come to Vermont for the organized tours on the bike friendly roads will still be on the roads.[2]

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The authors of those previous letters have failed to note the immense population of tourists who love to bike or walk on rail trails, but would never ride on a road.  The numbers of users on just one popular rail trail in Vermont, (the 300,000 users on the Burlington Bike Path) swamps the total number of organized riders throughout the entire state.  The dollars generated from users of rail trails also swamps the numbers generated from road bikers. Heres some statistics from a sampling of projects around the U.S and beyond:

• In Confluence, Pennsylvania, one of the projects first trailhead towns, the trail has encouraged the development of several new businesses and a rise in real estate values.[4]

• In the months following the opening of the Mineral Belt Trail in Leadville, Colorado, the city reported a 19 percent increase in sales tax revenues.[5]

• Owners of restaurants and lodging facilities report that they are serving customers who have come into town specifically to ride the trail.  The trail has helped Leadville recover from the economic blow of a mine closure in 1999.[6]

• The Mineral Wells to Weatherford Rail-Trail in Texas attracts approximately 300,000 people annually and generates local revenues of $2 million.[7]

• Visitors to Ohios Little Miami Scenic Trail spend an average of $13.54 per visit just on food, beverages and transportation to the trail.  In addition, they spend an estimated $277 per person each year on clothing, equipment and accessories to use during these trail trips.  The total economic benefit is impressive considering there are an estimated 150,000 trail users per year.[8] 

• The Mispillion River Greenway in Milford, Delaware, is credited with inspiring downtown reinvestment and a net gain in new businesses, with more than 250 people now working in a downtown that was nearly vacant 10 years ago.[9]

• The downtown of Dunedin, Florida suffered a 35 percent storefront vacancy rate in 1992.  Then, an abandoned CSX railroad track became the Pinellas Trail.  Now, storefront occupancy is 100 percent and there is a waiting list for available space.[10]

• For peak-season, hotel rooms along Wisconsin's 32-mile Elroy-Sparta State Park Trail are booked up to a full year in advance.  A state study revealed that the average visitor travels 228 miles to get to the trail, bringing substantial "new" money into Wisconsin.[11]

• On average, Québec bicycle tourists travel a total of 15 days per year, generally spread out over two, three or four trips.  In terms of accommodations, they prefer either hotels (bed-and- breakfasts, hotels, motels, etc.) or campsites.  Bicycle tourists spend an average of about a hundred dollars a day, making them a more lucrative tourist clientele than average Québec tourists, who spend only $52 per day.[12]

The idea of making the St. J&LC into a world-class rail-trail, like none other seen in New England is nearing reality. However, much hard work lies ahead. The Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) is in the midst of the rail-banking process for the Lamoille Valley Rail Corridor.  VTrans filed the required package of information to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in Washington, D.C. on November 24, 2003.  The STB is required to post the notice of this in the Federal Register within 20 days after it is filed.  It therefore should appear sometime this month.  Please write a letter supporting this action and send it to:

Section of Environmental Analysis

Surface Transportation Board, Room 500

1925 K Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20423-0001

Re:          Surface Transportation Board, Docket No. AB-44 (Sub-No. 1X)

Sincerely,

Craig P. Della Penna

New England Field Representative