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(erielack) Marion Rails To Trails

Good news from Marion........
Well, the best news that we could hope for would be restoration of the rails
to the former EL main to Chicago, but in lieu of that........
The Marion County Commissioners and the county's park district, Prairie
Parks and Nature Preserves along with the Hardin (Kenton) and Allen (Lima)
county  commissioners announced today a plan to convert the former Erie
Lackawanna mainline track (now an overgrown roadbed - track was removed in
1982) into a bike and hike trail. The trail is projected to start just west
of the Little Scioto River bridges (MP 3.59 at the MJ crossovers, west end
of the Marion Yard limits) and go westward about 46 miles, or to about
Westminster, in Allen County (5 miles east of SJ Tower, Lima). The counties
have already received $427,000 from Surface Transportation (Board) Program
funds which were part of over $10 million allocated to Ohio projects. This
money is earmarked toward paying for up to 80 percent of the land purchase
with local funds picking up the balance. Negotiations have been going on
with Conrail (who still owns the ROW !!!), but on June 1st, as we all know,
CR ceases to exist.......the person that the officials have been dealing
with is going to NS and guess what......the property goes to CSX . To quote
the lead commissioner....."We're changing horses in the middle of the
stream........There's a lot of work ahead of us."
         While I'd much rather see trains run again on the line, this at
least is an improvement over almost twenty years of brush growth and ground
hog holes!!

                     Rich Tubbs
    Visit my Erie Lackawanna Page at
 http://members.xoom.com/richmarion
             (under construction)


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