The U.S. Surface Transportation Board has advanced plans to convert the out-of-service Rock Island Railroad into a 144-mile recreational trail across Missouri.
The decision last week set the six-month clock for Ameren Corp., which currently owns the rail corridor, to negotiate the transfer of the railway to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
If Ameren and the DNR can come to an agreement and forward it to the Surface Transportation Board before Aug. 25, the Rock Island Railroad bed will likely be converted to a hiking and biking trail. The Rock Island corridor, which spans from Kansas City to near St. Louis, would potentially loop with the Katy Trail to create more than 400 miles of a continuous route.
The Surface Transportation Board also denied a request of Missouri Farm Bureau, which opposes the trail, to hold public hearings.
"We remain concerned about how a trail might impact landowners who will be directly affected along the route. We also have concerns regarding the cost of the project to taxpayers," Leslie Holloway, a representative of Missouri Farm Bureau, said Friday.
Several residents who live along the Rock Island corridor oppose the conversion, saying the property - which was originally granted to the rail company by easement - should revert to the landowners.
However, the conversion of the railway to trail is legal due to railbanking, a federal provision designed to preserve rail corridors for potential salvaging. Tracks and ties are removed from the railway, but the passage itself is kept intact in the form of the trail.
If a rail company could prove customers have a demand for service, the trail could be reacquired from the state and turned back into a railway.
Since the railbanking provision was put into place in 1983, this reacquisition has occurred four times in the United States, according to Keith Laughlin, president of Rails to Trails Conservancy.
However, proponents of the conversion are more interested in the potential economic and recreational benefits of the Rock Island once it's been transformed into a trail.
"We're certainly delighted that the decision came down, and it just moves us one step closer to making the trail a reality," Chrysa Niewald, president of Missouri Rock Island Trail Inc. (MoRIT), said Friday.
Although MoRIT will not be involved in the negotiations between Ameren and the DNR, Niewald said Missouri State Parks plans to schedule informational meetings. Dates for these meetings have not yet been set.