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Comment by acomjean | Hacker News Reader

I like riding on our local rail trail but there is another side.

Once tracks are taken out of service, it’s very unlikely they’ll ever be put back. 2020 being a strange year, but heavy traffic is returning and public options around Boston and many cities are seeing service cuts.

This short article about Maine’s debate of it summarizes pretty well.

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/rails-vs-trai...

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I assume that's something of an edge case in that there's a fairly successful Amtrak extension to the Northeast Corridor and further extending it to Maine's capital seems pretty logical.

I expect most rail trails are on old rail right of ways that have no realistic hope of being converted back to rail in the foreseeable future. That said, it's a valid concern that rail-trails pretty much squash any possibility of that ever happening.

"no realistic hope of being converted back to rail in the foreseeable future"

I think the two biggest issues are changing regulations around setbacks and turn radius requirements. Both of these impact maximum loads and speeds, and can mean that even if an existing right of way is there, it may not be practically usable.

I'd figured that rails-to-trails would actually help the odds of restoring old rail lines as they keep the right-of-way intact. Perfect being the enemy of good and all that.

I guess I can see that perspective. Screw the recreational trail users is probably easier than screw the suburban home owners who built on the former right of way. But in practice I assume it's still pretty irreversible.

something has to give, but considering this as people getting screwed feels like a NIMBY attitude.

as an active biker, i'd rather bike trails are converted to rails than no rails at all.

besides, especially for those rails in remote areas, tracks require maintenance roads and there is no reason those couldn't double as bike paths as well.

i forsee a future where railtracks and bike paths live side by side, away from car traffic.

bike paths don't need much space. for a long distance trail, a 1m wide path is enough. should not be to hard to find space for that.

My comment was really in the context of the upthread Brunswick to Augusta discussion that would go through at least the outskirts of a small city. In that context, if you decide to put a railroad back in safety and other concerns probably would preclude a rail trail in the same location--but maybe not. The issue with rail trails in very remote areas is probably more about low utilization than right of ways. (Which is why you see that this trail isn't actually planned in a big chunk of the West.) No one is building new rail routes in Wyoming in any case.

That's actually, theoretically, the plan for a set of tracks adjacent to my house. In practice though, its easier said than done. Besides width concerns, which are easy in some places and much harder in others, do you really want young children riding their bikes a few feet away from a speeding train? Do you put up a fence?

I would assume putting up a fence at a minimum would be a given.

Fences are detrimental to nature, and quite expensive.

i would hope the rails can be converted without the right of way being lost

Certainly. But now you have a trail for recreational users that would probably have to be taken away if it were converted back to rail.

while i agree with your point, i think many trail tracks will need rebuilding for modern trains anyways. at least if you want trains to go faster than 100 miles per hour.

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