OUTDOORS: At long last, high times for the Low Grade?

Since Saturday was National Trails Day, I thought it was a good time for an update on the long-running case of Lancaster County's own Enola Low-Grade rail line.

It's been more than 20 years since a group of Solanco dreamers dared envision that a soon-to-be abandoned freight line could become a jewel of a public recreation resource and a walk through history.

It's been a rocky road, full of fits and starts, setbacks, court litigation, ruined political careers and angry rhetoric, but recent developments indicate — dare I say it — that a Low-Grade rail-trail is headed to reality.

The biggest factor is the current mindset of officials in Eden, Bart, Martic, Providence, Conestoga and Sadsbury townships.

All but Sadsbury, which controls the easternmost 3 miles of the rail bed, last year opened their corridors to public use to obtain tax-exempt status.

You can currently walk the line from the Sadsbury-Bart township line to the Pequea Creek trestle in Martic Township, and from there to the massive railroad trestle across the Conestoga River at the Safe Harbor Dam.

It would be rough going, but you could do it. Riding a bike is another matter.

More than just opening the right of way, most of the townships have taken initial steps to pave the way for a trail that eventually could be shared also by bike riders, families with baby strollers, horseback riders and the like.

For example, Eden Township has gone to considerable effort to grade and haul in rock to raise the elevation in spots where you'd get wet walking on the bed. The township has built a public parking area off Bushong Road.

FFA students from Solanco High School hoisted away more than 1,000 tires.

"I think we have a lot of people who want to use it," says Supervisor Jay Groff. "People say they can't ride bikes on it. We said wait."

The township's 2.65 miles and 96 acres has been designated as a park called The Low-Grade Lands of Eden Township.

Providence Township is paying Quarryville Borough police to patrol the right of way with a four-wheeler and has just created a parks and recreation committee whose prime responsibility will be to tend to trail improvements.

The township has removed ballast to make a more user-friendly surface and petitioned — apparently unsuccessfully — the PUC to allow the Hollow Road stone-arch bridge remain.

The township has an elevated walkway until recently used over a road at the Willow Valley Resort and Conference Center. The township will likely use it to carry trail users over a road where a bridge has been removed.

Martic Township has built a parking area for trail users off Route 324 and Red Hill Road and mows the grass in its 2.5 miles of right of way. It's working for a way to satisfy the PUC's safety concerns and still let the Route 324 landmark stone-arch bridge to remain.

Conestoga Township has rolled out a parking area off Colemanville Church Road, near River Road.

All the townships have hauled out considerable debris and taken steps to shoo off illegal use by off-road vehicles.

But additional improvements in the townships are on hold until Amtrak replaces its double transmission towers in the right of way that carry electricity from the Safe Harbor Dam to the railroad's main line at Parkesburg.

The old double goal-post-like towers will be plucked out and be replaced by single but taller towers. Initially, Amtrak was going to run the 90-foot towers in the middle of the right of way but has agreed to requests from the townships and the county to move them off to the side.

One issue in this is that low spots on the edges of the old railroad line have had standing water so long that they have been designated as wetlands by the state and can't be tampered with.

Still, the towers will be moved far enough off-center to allow a trail, says Mike Domin, a principal planner with the county.

Crucial to how soon the decades-old vision of a continuous public trail comes to pass may be in what Amtrak leaves behind.

The railroad, which has received federal stimulus money for the project, says that money can't be used on a trail.

But the railroad will lay down a 16-feet-wide stone road for future maintenance vehicles to use.

Eden Township roadmaster Mark Rudy says it will be a packable stone and limestone dust surface that he compared to a hard-packed dirt road.

It should be suitable for not only foot travel, but also bicycles and someone pushing a baby stroller, Rudy said.

The Amtrak project could begin within a month and the contract calls for it to be finished by next February.

So, could there be, at last, a new, considerable rail-trail through scenic farmland and soothing woods less than a year from now?

Conestoga Township still has to find a way to refurbish the Martic Forge trestle across Pequea Creek. And the trestle across the Conestoga at Safe Harbor separates the Low Grade from continuing onto breathtaking views of the Susquehanna and a 5-mile rail-trail Manor Township is eager to build. Manor has saved money to convert the Safe Harbor trestle to pedestrian use.

It wouldn't be perfect. There have been bridges removed and walls of dirt to detour around.

But where there's a will there's a way, and this time, it appears, there is a will.

"I can honestly say I know at least 100 people who are just waiting for a decent trail," says former Eden Supervisor Glenn Morrison, who lives on the edge of the Low Grade.

He cites some of the state's most popular rail-trails: York County's Northern Central Railroad Trail, the Pine Creek Rail-Trail, and the Lebanon Valley Rail-Trail.

"You'd be surprised how many of those people who use them are from central and southern Lancaster County," Morrison says.

"I have no doubts it will be used if it exists."

Adds C. William Shaffer, supervisor for Providence Township, a township that once was chilly to a public trail in its midst.

"You know what it is? We live here in our community and we are secluded from the hustle and bustle, but people that are in it every day, I think, will begin to appreciate the rural atmosphere of these trails and these parks that can be created.

"This is an opportunity we can't let pass by. We really can't. It's just such a valuable resource for everybody."

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Source: http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/258415

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