Nature Trails and Mixed Routes - Tourism and Trails: Cultural, Ecological and Management Issues - page 92

authorized the preservation of relinquished rail corridors for public uses
(Vance, 1991; Wright, 1997). In 1983, the US Congress extended the law to
endorse the conversion of deserted railroad lines into hiking and biking trails
under the principle of 'railbanking', or the act of preserving established rail-
road easements or rights of way for future reactivation 'just in case they
should ever be needed again as railroads' (Thompson, 2000: 80). As part of
this legislation, the federal government promised to devote significant sums
of money to railbank and reserve rail lines for trail conversions. Trail and
environmental advocates have actively sought to use this legislation to 'buy
out' less profitable railroad companies, which would, according to Welsh
(1998: 56), earn more money from the government by terminating their
operations than continuing to operate.
Rail-trails often link into other routes or connect smaller ones into
longer-distance trails (Hiss, 1997). However, many are distinct route experi-
ences themselves. Some rail-trails are located in city centers or suburbs, but
most line portions are located in rural areas, in some often remote parts of
the world. As such, trail users (hikers, bikers and horseback riders) are par-
ticularly fond of the relatively undisturbed natural areas, flora and fauna,
woodlands, farmlands, historic bridges, tunnels, old rail cars, railway sta-
tions and heritage features along the way (Blackwell et al. , 2009; Cain, 1991;
Forsberg, 1995; Gangewere, 1991, 1992; Gibson, 1999; Hill, 1997). They are
also fashionable tracks for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in the
winter (Hedberg, 1989).
Their natural and cultural value as transportation corridors and recreational
thoroughfares is underscored by one former rail-trail director: 'With rails-to-
trails, we're building a second national park system . . . It will interconnect
trails and parks coast to coast. There are no more Yosemites and Yellowstones
to be developed, but we do have this wonderful network of trails' that
resemble 'linear parks . . . ribbons of land, shielded from the real world by a
buffer of greenery' (quoted in Pena, 1991: 92). Similarly, one rail-trail user
exemplified the mixed purpose appeal of rail-trails in his statement that
As I biked through rolling fields and small towns that day, past red barns,
gleaming silos and green fields dotted with black-and-white cows, I saw
our country the way John Mills had seen it - from the backyard. It was
an intimate, reassuring homey view of the heartland, with its clothes-
lines and vegetable gardens, toolsheds and woodpiles, back stoops and
corncribs. It seemed to suggest that all was well in this particular slice of
rural America, and for a former child of the suburbs, who vacationed
every summer in Los Angeles, exploring it was more fun than a trip to
Disneyland. (Mills, 1990: 133)
Rail-trails in the US are managed by many organizations, including gov-
ernment agencies, non-profit citizen groups, land trusts and community