(The following story by P.J. Reilly appeared on the Intelligencer Journal website on May 16.)
LANCASTER, Pa. — It’s been 19 years since Conrail first moved to abandon the train tracks that stretch across southern Lancaster County.
And ever since then, the owner of the 23-mile Enola Low-Grade Line — which is now Norfolk Southern — has been trying to unload it.
It now appears ownership of the 850-acre property finally will be transferred out of the hands of the railroad company this summer.
Within the past week, six Lancaster County townships — Bart, Conestoga, Eden, Martic, Providence and Sadsbury — and West Sadsbury Township in Chester County received from Norfolk Southern sales agreements regarding the Enola property.
The supervisors in each township have 30 days to sign and return the agreements to Norfolk Southern. The price each township must pay for the railroad land is $1.
Supervisors in Eden and Conestoga signed their agreements this week.
In Sadsbury, supervisors voted Monday night to sign their agreement as soon as their solicitor gets answers to a few minor questions.
Providence supervisors in April voted to sign their agreement as soon as it arrived and their solicitor had reviewed it. Solicitor Mel Newcomer said he received the agreement Thursday.
Martic supervisors have scheduled a special meeting for 6:30 p.m. Monday in the township building to discuss their agreement.
Supervisors in Bart and West Sadsbury have yet to address their agreements.
Once the railroad accepts all the agreements, Norfolk Southern officials have 60 days to sign over the land to the respective townships, the agreements state.
Also, the railroad will turn over $1.4 million to be divided by the townships for bridge maintenance and/or demolition, as ordered by the state Public Utilities Commission in 1997.
Already, Norfolk Southern is preparing to close the book on this long, complicated story.
“We’re talking about doing some type of event to mark the end of this whole process at one of the townships,” said Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband. “After everything we’ve been through, it would seem odd to just let it pass without any acknowledgment.”
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Between 1903 and 1906, Pennsylvania Railroad built what was called the Atglen-Susquehanna line from Creswell Station in Manor Township, down the Susquehanna River to Safe Harbor and across Solanco to Atglen, Chester County.
More than 2,000 men, many of them Italian, Turkish and Syrian immigrants, were employed at the peak of construction. Dozens died while blasting through the river hills and the rolling terrain of Solanco.
The construction required more earth moving than any other project of its era except the Panama Canal. The goal was to maintain a grade of just 1 percent from the Susquehanna River all the way to Atglen.
The last train ran on the line in 1988 and Conrail asked permission from the federal government a year later to abandon it.
That’s when the battle over the land began.
A private rail-trail group succeeded in lining up more than $1 million for the property’s conversion for hiking, but the effort fell apart amid rancorous opposition by residents and officials in most of the affected townships.
The county also briefly considered taking on the rail-trail project but retreated in the face of Solanco opposition.
The townships through which the line runs offered to take the land in a deal that ultimately was approved by the PUC in 1997.
A variety of delays — including the acquisition of Conrail by Norfolk Southern in 1999 — held up the deal for years.
In 2004, Lancaster County Commissioners abruptly announced their intent to seize the line through eminent domain to establish a rail-trail.
The Solanco townships quickly challenged the takeover in court and won. The county’s land grab was overturned.
Supervisors in some of the townships over the years have said they are willing to discuss establishing a rail-trail on the line. But they’ve consistently said they want ownership of the property first.
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According to Lancaster County property records and the 1997 PUC order, the land and money each of the six townships here stands to receive from Norfolk Southern are:
• Bart Township — 100.7 acres and $150,000.
• Conestoga Township — at least 134.5 acres and $350,000.
• Eden Township — 131.3 acres and $90,000.
• Martic Township — 100.4 acres and $350,000.
• Providence Township — 275.2 acres of land within the township plus 38 acres in Quarryville Borough and $315,000. (Quarryville has signed over its portion of the line to Providence).
• Sadsbury Township — 69.6 acres and $80,000.
It could not be determined Thursday how many acres West Sadsbury is expected to acquire. The PUC order calls for the township to receive $30,000.