[HN Gopher] The Great American Rail-Trail
___________________________________________________________________
The Great American Rail-Trail
Author : peter_d_sherman
Score : 134 points
Date : 2024-04-04 14:30 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.railstotrails.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.railstotrails.org)
| peter_d_sherman wrote:
| Related:
|
| Rails-To-Trails Conservancy's main page:
|
| https://www.railstotrails.org/
|
| Longest Rail-Trails in the United States
|
| https://www.railstotrails.org/united-states/#:~:text=Longest...
|
| FAQs about the Great American Rail-Trail:
|
| https://www.railstotrails.org/site/greatamericanrailtrail/co...
| la_yerba wrote:
| An east-to-west traverse would be the only way to trek this
| without disappointment, wherein the reward for surviving the un-
| fun and mostly flat east and lower Great Lakes, upper Appalachia
| excepted, and the windblown monotony of the Great Plains is the
| Rockies and the Pacific Northwest/Cascades, which are beyond
| awesome.
|
| Do it west-to-east and you've seen everything worth seeing by
| Wyoming, so utterly underwhelming is everything east thereof.
|
| I once started in Washington, D.C. and only made it to Chicago
| before giving up from overwhelming boredom, jumping the Amtrak
| (train) to Denver before continuing west.
| hinkley wrote:
| Indiana will do that to you.
| mturmon wrote:
| I went west-to-east in the late 1980s.
|
| My group was in, err, _very good shape_ by the time we got to
| Kansas.
|
| We crossed Indiana in less than 2 days of riding (Vincennes,
| IN to Cincinnati OH along Hwy. 50). It was exhilarating.
| hinkley wrote:
| Had some friends (one friend and a friend of that friend
| really) who went east to west around then. We thought they
| were crazy for fighting the prevailing winds and the
| escalating terrain.
|
| They went to Alaska, had some fun times with Canadian
| customs for not following directions. And they thought they
| took an excess of spare inner tubes and made it about
| halfway before needing to buy more.
|
| My Indiana comment was more a "people from the Midwest will
| take any opportunity to make fun of Iowa, and if that's not
| an option, make fun of Indiana or Wisconsin"
| mcswell wrote:
| Indiana is much more interesting underground, IMO. There are
| lots of nice caves down around Bloomington and Bedford.
| mayormcmatt wrote:
| Well, DC to Chicago sounds like it would allow me to catch up
| on podcasts...
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Do it west-to-east and you've seen everything worth seeing by
| Wyoming
|
| The section in PA that follows a few rivers before climbing the
| eastern continental divide is quite lovely, and is followed by
| a similarly lovely section along the canal to DC.
|
| Crossing the midwest by bike is never going to lovely, no
| matter what direction you choose, and west-to-east at least
| shifts the odds of tailwinds slightly in your favor.
| la_yerba wrote:
| Yeah, that's the area I meant by Upper Appalachia, that
| really gorgeous, hilly topography in (what I think was)
| eastern Pennsylvania.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'm not sure sight-seeing is the only reason to bike tour.
|
| I did the Katy trail last Fall (across the state of Missouri --
| about 6 days or so of camping/biking). It was punctuated with
| pretty limestone bluffs and the Missouri River but to be sure
| had stretches of farmer's fields, etc.
|
| I still enjoyed the isolation, and then the small towns you
| rolled into. Turtles, camaraderie with fellow bikers, sense of
| accomplishment and adventure....
|
| A lot to enjoy besides the views.
| l3db3tt3r wrote:
| I think going east to west is the better choice too. Given the
| terrain, and amount of closeness of services on the Eastern
| sections -- this lets the individual get in shape, for the
| harder, longer sections as you move West, but also dial-in
| their fueling and hydration systems.
| wl wrote:
| The prevailing winds are generally west-to-east across the US,
| so east-to-west means more headwinds than tailwinds.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Prevailing winds are a damned lie.
|
| Source: bike toured a good chunk of the Trans America and
| Western Express route west to east. Most of it upwind.
| panzagl wrote:
| Both ways.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I figure I'll start from where I live and then go some other
| place. Or vice versa
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| I love this project, but their map seems a little optimistic. I'm
| pretty sure there's a big gap between Washington and Idaho that's
| closed due to disputes with land owners and maintenance issues.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| https://www.railstotrails.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Was...
|
| Not sure if you'd call the 37.8 miles near Warden a "big gap"
| or not.
| GartzenDeHaes wrote:
| Right, I guess non-continuous sections might be a better
| description.
| jandrese wrote:
| Looking at the map it seems Wyoming is the problem child.
| l3db3tt3r wrote:
| Wyoming was a mixed bag, There were certainly a few long
| sections in WY that sucked, but that was just the nature of
| those areas, a kind of barren no man's land, not a lot of
| resources, but that also meant not much traffic.
| l3db3tt3r wrote:
| Maintenance issues mostly, for Eastern Washington wildland
| fires have taken out a number of old bridges. It wasn't too
| difficult to re-route around them. (I don't recall there being
| any issues with land ownership disputes)
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| This is nice, but I would have also accepted restoring disused
| railroad tracks and using them for passenger rail.
|
| I realize this is in a whole different league of planning and
| costs and maintenance and operations, but I sure would love more
| and more robust rail in this country.
| euroderf wrote:
| Not just passenger rail, but _light_ rail.
|
| I'd think that upgrading disused tracks to that level is
| cheaper than a full restoration to some level capable of
| supporting mainline-capable engines.
|
| In any case, so-called interurbans were (AFAICT) the
| regional/intercity buses of their day.
| bell-cot wrote:
| There's a _lot_ of devils in the details here - but yes, _as
| a generality_ , interurban-style light rail can be done on
| far lighter-duty rails (& bridges, etc.) than even the bottom
| tier of "regular" railroading requires.
|
| Though it's not _just_ the engines that are heavy on regular
| RR 's. And many of the costs do not scale with track weight.
| And running a regional/intercity transit system is seriously
| non-trivial, even if Santa Claus somehow gifts you with a
| free and magically maintenance-free rail network.
| burkaman wrote:
| Yes, it was an incredibly extensive network before cars took
| over:
| https://urbanists.social/@straphanger/111059691532896415
| cdchn wrote:
| I was thinking the same thing. This is great for recreational
| bicyclists but more public transportation options would help
| everybody.
| bombcar wrote:
| Most (but not all!) of these rails to trails are not in
| positions to be even moderately lightly used by passenger rail.
|
| And by being trails now, they preserve the line if it ever is
| needed in the future.
| dugmartin wrote:
| I grew up in an area that the "TransAmerica Bicycle Trail"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TransAmerica_Bicycle_Trail) goes
| through. The "Bikecentennial '76" event
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikecentennial) used that route.
|
| The only reason I know this is a tiny sign commemorating the
| "Bikecentennial '76" next to a tiny section of dedicated
| asphalted bike trail out in the middle of nowhere along a state
| highway route.
|
| Every once in a while growing up I would see folks following the
| TransAmerica Bicycle Trail. It looked like both a lot of fun and
| a lot of work.
| l3db3tt3r wrote:
| I finished the GART this summer. 69 days, ~3800 miles, started in
| Washington DC at the Capital Building moving East to Wast.
|
| The difference between riding the completed sections (not dealing
| with auto-traffic), and the various road
| (dirt,gravel,asphalt,HWY) sections to connect the various trails
| had me in very different mental spaces - and although that may
| seem obvious, it was something entirely profound to experience.
| It really adds to the realization of how ambitious this project
| is, and I think solidified the worth/value I have of the endeavor
| being completing. (It's estimated at something like 60%
| completed.)
| ch33zer wrote:
| Did you blog or document your experience anywhere?
| l3db3tt3r wrote:
| I started with some idea/intention of doing so, but what I
| ended up with was mostly pictures, and short videos shared to
| social media.
|
| ... I think I may be one of those people who likes the idea
| of being a 'writer' or blogger, but lacks the enjoyment/drive
| of the work/time/effort it actually takes. OR I need to
| engage in the practice and make it a routine, create
| discipline, work out the kinks, before also taking on the
| demands of a new adventure.
| yolo3000 wrote:
| I've recently watched this guy's journey, maybe something
| interesting for you as well
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OfNePKRPGY
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > Toward the end of 2021, the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge
| (I-74 Bridge) was completed, providing a new multimodal
| crossing of the Mississippi River between East Moline,
| Illinois, and Bettendorf, Iowa. Prior to this bridge
| completion, the Great American Rail-Trail was routed across the
| Government/Arsenal Bridge farther west between Rock Island,
| Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa. Both bridges are about the same
| length and accommodate trail users. Therefore, instead of
| choosing which bridge should be the official crossing of the
| Great American Rail-Trail, both bridges are shown on the route
| map, and trail users can choose for themselves.
|
| Which bridge did you choose to cross the Mississippi? From
| photos, it looks like the bike/pedestrian path on the I-74
| bridge is dramatically superior and should be the "official"
| crossing, but I can understand that the historical significance
| of the Government/Arsenal bridge keeps that on the map (it is
| the 2nd rebuild of the very first bridge to ever cross the
| Mississippi and was the subject of the lawsuit that got a
| country bumpkin lawyer named Abe Lincoln into the national
| newspapers for the first time).
| l3db3tt3r wrote:
| I took the I-74 bridge; it lined up with my accommodations,
| and the 'newness' of it was touted as something to see/do at
| the time.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Go through to the state pages and click "Download Route Analysis"
| to see PDFs of exactly where they're planning for it to go. It's
| a long-term project, putting it mildly, but good luck to them.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This is what a national trail system could/should look like.
|
| https://tctrail.ca/
| ericholscher wrote:
| Is it fully off road and complete? Seems not like it from the
| map.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I believe the east-west connection has been established, with
| the north-south aspects still in progress. As for "off road",
| that is a can of worms. Some people say any contact with a
| road surface, even a crosswalk, isn't good enough. Others
| demand it be set back some distance from roads. Others insist
| that all motor vehicles be forbidden from the trail, which is
| never going to happen in snowmobile country. And still others
| don't want it touching "private" land, despite established
| easements.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The US has a set of National Scenic Trails: https://en.wikipedi
| a.org/wiki/National_Trails_System#Nationa..., and the
| Appalachian Trail is essentially the granddaddy of all such
| trails so far as I'm aware.
| ch33zer wrote:
| I did the transamerica bike route
| (https://www.adventurecycling.org/routes-and-maps/adventure-c...)
| a few years ago. That route is mostly on roads with some trail
| sections. It makes for an interesting tradeoff: if you optimize
| for low traffic roads without worrying too much about about
| strictly staying on trails you can stay away from cars fairly
| successfully. In comparison, if you optimize for staying on
| trails as much as possible you may end up riding on busy roads
| connecting the trail segments.
|
| There's no right answers, life's built on tradeoffs, etc.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| A lot of people are not familiar with the American Discovery
| Trail. https://discoverytrail.org It is not as popular as the big
| 3 (AT, CDT, PCT).
|
| Since I live right beside it, I've hosted many hikers and bikers
| crossing the US providing trail magic, bounce boxes and such.
| Maybe my retirement plan is walking it myself one day like
| https://www.greybeardadventurer.com did for the AT.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| For non-hikers like me to learn:
| https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/appalachian-trail-backpackin...
|
| - "Bounce Box - Box of supplies you ship or 'bounce' forward to
| pick up in your next trail town."
|
| - "Trail Angel - Giver of Trail Magic. A volunteer who helps
| hikers with a place to stay in their house, a shuttle to the
| trail head, free food, anything."
|
| - "Trail Magic - Given by Trail Angels. The goodies a Trail
| Angel offers out of goodwill."
|
| Seems like a fun hobby
| ghaff wrote:
| There's also a ferry operator https://www.matc.org/kennebec-
| river-ferry-service/ to cross the Kennebec in Maine.
| dustincoates wrote:
| The long-distance trails are one of the things I love most
| about the US. Some of them are obviously much more "contiguous"
| than others, but I love that people are trying to create more.
| Here's a list of them:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-distance_trails_i...
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| My grandfather donated to this project quite a bit back in the
| 90s and early 00's.
|
| He passed back in '06, so I'm happy to see this project still
| going strong.
| maztaim wrote:
| Love them. Support them. Completed a 6 day bike trip from
| Pittsburgh to Washington DC on the GAP and C&O trails back in
| 2012. I would start as early as I could, often breaking trail for
| the day (wear a bandana and sunglasses or eat spiderwebs all
| day). Lots of deer and blue herons to hang out with. It was very
| peaceful and quiet, but I mostly remember green tunnel trails for
| most of the trip. There are wonderful stops and vistas along the
| way. As you leave the paw-paw tunnel, one of my favorite views of
| the valley quickly pass by, the closer you get to Georgetown, the
| better maintained the C&O is; the more beautiful the trail
| becomes.
|
| I actually rode the C&O trail a bunch of times in Scouts and with
| my grandparents as a child. I think these are great for any skill
| level, including beginners. The biggest advantage for me is the
| fact there are very few roads you need to ride on. Because they
| are typically on old railways, or canals, they are usually not
| steep grades (though don't let somebody tell you "it's only a 6%
| grade!", because it sucks going uphill for lots of miles).
|
| You can split up the trails in to day, weekend, or week-long
| trips. Especially on the GAP and C&O there are plenty of camps,
| towns and stops along the way to support yourself on the way. On
| my 2012 trip a guy caught up to me and tolerated my slowness for
| a bit. He was planning to finish the Pgh to DC trip in 3 days.
|
| I've been contemplated riding the Erie Canalway, but my love for
| biking was ruined a bit with a bad case of achilles tendonitis
| after my last trip.
|
| https://gaptrail.org/ https://www.canaltrust.org/plan/co-canal-
| towpath/ https://eriecanalway.org/explore/cycling
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| ive done the gap ride 4 times now and its always been a blast.
| we go from pittsburgh to cumberland so the last day is always
| such a blast with the big tunnel and 20+ miles downhill
| jjulius wrote:
| Now, who'll be crazy enough to combine this with the PCT and the
| AT into one long, N-shaped venture across the US?
| bargle0 wrote:
| On what part of that would you want to be during the winter?
| jjulius wrote:
| Me? None, hence "crazy". :) I just find the idea of long
| adventures/trails like that to be interesting, and I'm sure
| it's not outside the realm of possibility that someone would
| want to do it.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| If you started the southern portion of the AT at the
| beginning of March (which is a fairly common start time for
| the AT anyway) you wouldn't have to deal with much snow for
| most of the journey.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I originally thought this would be nearly impossible to pull
| off, but the more I look at it, the more "reasonable" it seems.
| People have hiked the triple crown in a year and this would
| probably be a lot easier.
|
| It looks like the AT meets up with the GART at Harper's Ferry,
| which is about the halfway point of the AT. Then the GART meets
| up with the PCT at Snoqualmie Pass, which is pretty close to
| the northern end of the trail.
|
| You'd have to time it all around snow melting in the Cascades
| and trying to get to Snoqualmie Pass around the beginning of
| July.
|
| A reasonable schedule (for a decently fit thru-hiker) would be
| to start March 1st on the AT and make it to Harper's Ferry by
| the end of April. Then you hop on the GART and take 3 months to
| walk across the ~3000 miles to meet up with the PCT at
| Snoqualmie pass. The 35ish miles per day would be a lot, but
| very doable on railroad grades and roads. If you make it to
| Snoqualmie Pass by July 1st you're right in the heart of the
| main southbound PCT thru-hiker season.
|
| Also, if you're the kind of hiker that attempted something like
| this, you'd probably do the AT and PCT sections a bit faster
| than the timeline I presented, giving you even more time for
| the GART.
| jjulius wrote:
| Fascinating! Thanks for the insight. :)
| Taikonerd wrote:
| Let me also highlight the East Coast Greenway -- a similar idea.
| They're building a trail from Maine to Florida, 3000 miles (4828
| km) long.
|
| https://www.greenway.org/
| Tokkemon wrote:
| This is a great use case for the Ryan Reynolds "But, why?" meme.
| plowjockey wrote:
| I recall this being very contentious when the rail banking act
| was enacted back in the '80s. At that time the right of way that
| became the Katy Trail in Missouri was in dispute but the adjacent
| land owners lost.
|
| More recently and closer to home, Union Pacific abandoned part of
| its Valley Subdivision from Lincoln,NE to Marysville, KS and
| successfully railbanked the entire route. Adjacent landowners
| fought it to no avail. Today the trail has three segments--
| Lincoln to Beatrice, NE, Beatrice to the Kansas/Nebraska state
| line, and from the state line to Marysville, KS.
|
| As I understand, railbanking is a way for railroads to abandon a
| route while protecting the right of way for possible future
| railroad use. In the mean time the trails make use of the right
| of way and maintain it.
| bombcar wrote:
| That's what rail banking is - the railroads want to keep the
| property (it's somewhat valuable though weirdly shaped) but
| more importantly want to keep the ability to run a line (which
| is potentially insanely valuable, because running a line where
| one hasn't been before is a hell of eminent domain and
| negotiations).
|
| Railbanking is a good way to let the land be used while not
| forcing the railroad to "pretend" it is still an active line.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| IMHO, it's a good idea. Running new contiguous multi-state
| rail lines suffer from a host of unique problems -- not least
| that the more uncooperative last-link property owner holdouts
| are, the more their property becomes worth.
|
| Good use case for a public-private bargain, where the public
| gets the utility of a trail (and potentially a functional
| railroad, if needed in the future) and private gets to keep
| the most valuable land utilization rights (ability to convert
| back to railroad).
|
| One of my historical fascinations is watching the co-
| evolution of rail and telecommunications line networks, since
| both have similar needs.
| analog31 wrote:
| Don't know if it's the case today, but as I recall, the rights-
| of-way were extremely valuable for routing fiber optic cables.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Also more recently for HVDC transmission. SOO Green and such.
|
| https://soogreen.com/
|
| https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-
| insights...
| burntwater wrote:
| Last fall I hiked 500 miles of a Camino trail in Spain. It was a
| fantastic experience and really made me wish we had something
| similar in the U.S. This is a good start, though the trail itself
| is only half the picture. To replicate the Camino experience you
| also need the network of cheap hostels every ~10 miles and the
| community and safety aspects that, sadly, I suspect would be
| lacking in the U.S.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| Does the Appalachian Trail not count?
| maxerickson wrote:
| There's probably lots of stretches where you need to go more
| than 10 miles to hit much of anything. There certainly is on
| long hiking trails in the Midwest and West.
|
| Doing a quick search, there's spots where paved roads are 30
| miles apart, and lots of times it will be more than 10 miles
| to get to the nearest town.
| ben7799 wrote:
| The US and Canada have tons and tons of 500+ mile trails,
| heck tons of 1000+ mile trails.
|
| Like 20+
| ethbr1 wrote:
| What the state of places to stay on the AT these days?
|
| Last I heard, there were still a lot of trail angel homes and
| on-trail campsites, but my info is ~25 years old.
| burntwater wrote:
| I haven't done it myself, but everything I've seen says the
| AT is a completely different kind of experience. You need to
| (should be) in reasonably good shape, you have to carry a lot
| more gear (ties into the first point), there's a lot more
| planning and logistics to work out, and it's a much more
| rustic experience (literally camping every night, with a few
| hotel stays).
|
| For the Camino, I started out 40 pounds overweight, I did
| zero physical training in preparation, I had to plan
| basically nothing except my flight, arrival day and departure
| day. I was able to do it with literally only a few weeks
| notice (I had never heard of it until a month prior.)
|
| Ultimately what I'm saying is the Camino trails are much more
| accessible to a wide range of people, as long as they're able
| to fly to Europe.
|
| ETA: I should perhaps explain that the Camino trails, or at
| least the most popular trail I took (the Francis) is really
| more of a walking trail than a hiking trail. It's mostly
| flat(ish) and is much closer to what's depicted in pictures
| posted on The Great American Rail-Trail.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Appalachian trail is pretty much wilderness unless you pop
| down to a town. Whereas the trail for the Camino de Santiago,
| at least the part that I was on, constantly sent you directly
| through towns.
| huytersd wrote:
| Yeah I don't think there is any comparison in how much more
| superior the US is when it comes to long 500-1000 mile
| relatively accessible trails. I can think of 10 just off the
| top of my head.
| burntwater wrote:
| The Camino is vastly superior, just in a very different way.
|
| ETA: I shouldn't say it's vastly superior, rather the Camino
| is a very, very different experience from the trails alluded
| to here, and is superior in relation to that experience.
| huytersd wrote:
| I've done a tiny piece of the Camino. It might as well be a
| paved greenway.
| burntwater wrote:
| Then you did a tiny piece of it and have chosen to
| extrapolate from that tiny piece.
|
| If it's not for you, that's totally OK. It IS something
| for many other people.
| joking wrote:
| El camino de Santiago is actually an ancient pilmigrage
| route, It has some variants but the main one has a lot of
| traffic and it's not rate to make friends as it's a very
| social route.
| lasermatts wrote:
| I live in Pittsburgh and I'd love to take the GAP from Pittsburgh
| to DC this summer.
|
| I never knew it was part of such a cool network!
| mcswell wrote:
| Rails-to-trail trails are, in my limited experience (mostly in
| the DC-MD-northern Va region), boringly flat. I suppose out in
| the Rockies and Cascades they are more un-flat, although if it
| was originally a railroad line it's still likely to be a pretty
| steady climb or descent. I guess it's fortunate that not everyone
| agrees with me :).
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Caprock Canyons Trailway in Texas [0] follows an old FW&DC (Fort
| Worth and Denver City Railway) track for about 64 miles across
| the landscape. It goes from relatively flat terrain around
| Estelline through some nice, scenic canyons towards South Plains,
| passing through the Quitaque (pronounced kit-uh-kway) area where
| you can find what is I think the only surviving railroad tunnel
| in the state. There used to be two of them but one collapsed I
| think in the late 1970's or early 1980's due to the steady
| vibrations of trains passing along the track. That's what I heard
| anyway. The other tunnel is still there on the new trailway and
| is nesting ground for a bunch of Mexican free-tail bats.
|
| [0]
| https://tpwd.texas.gov/spdest/parkinfo/maps/gis/caprock_cany...
|
| Zoom out a little since that is focused on Caprock Canyon State
| Park just north of the Rails-to-Trails section of trailway.
|
| Back in the 1980's before it was abandoned by the Burlington
| Northern Railroad who owned it at the time, my Dad ran trains
| along that route bringing grain from farms at the south end all
| the way back to the main line at Wichita Falls where it could be
| routed south to Houston or Galveston for export or distribution.
|
| It passes through some beautiful country. I have been planning to
| visit that park and walk that trail for a long time. Maybe this
| will be the year.
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(page generated 2024-04-04 23:00 UTC)