(The following story by P.J. Reilly and John Walk appeared on the Intelligencer Journal website on July 29.)
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Twenty-three miles of the abandoned Enola Low-Grade Line in southern Lancaster County today are under municipal ownership.
At a gathering in Norfolk Southern’s Harrisburg office Monday, railroad company officials signed over deeds to the 850-acre property to Bart, Conestoga, Eden, Martic, Providence and Sadsbury townships.
Each township owns the section of line within its borders.
In addition to its own portion of the line, Providence Township also now owns the section of the line that runs through Quarryville Borough, in accordance with an agreement reached several years ago between the two municipalities.
“I’ve been here with Conestoga Township for about four years,” said township supervisor Steven Charles Sr. “But I know others around here that have dealt with this for the last 15 to 18 years.
“It’s finally done, and it’s a big relief for all of those involved.”
Railroad company officials, who have sought to unload the property for two decades, also expressed relief Monday.
“We are pleased finally to convey this abandoned portion of the Enola branch to the townships. It is long overdue,” said Blair Wimbush, Norfolk Southern’s vice president of real estate.
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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.
The railroad project required the movement of more earth than any other project of its era with the exception of the construction of 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. A year later Conrail asked permission from the federal government 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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While the creation of a trail — if it happens at all — is not imminent, Norfolk Southern is moving now to begin demolishing six bridges along the line that it was ordered to remove by the PUC in 1997.
Rudy Husband, spokesman for the railroad, said the stone-arch tunnel that carries the line over Route 222 in Providence Township, just north of Quarryville, is slated to be removed by the end of this year.
Work will begin, Husband said, as soon as a contractor is hired.
Once demolition is complete, Husband said, motorists will drive through a “big gap” in the ridge where the tunnel is now located.
“You’ll see slopes leading from the railroad right of way down to Route 222, and everything in between will be open,” he said.
Back in 2000, the railroad and the Southern End Community Association, a nonprofit civic improvement group, agreed that the historic stones from the Route 222 bridge should be used for various public projects in the community.
Husband said the railroad still is amenable to that arrangement, but he said “that’s a detail we just haven’t gotten around to yet.”
In 2009, Norfolk Southern plans to remove bridges that either carry the line over a roadway or vice versa on Oak Bottom Road, Hollow Road and Sigman Road, all in Providence Township; Pumping Station Road in Eden Township; and White Oak Road in Sadsbury Township.
Eden Township supervisor Glenn Morrison said his board wants to keep intact the bridge that carries the Enola line over Pumping Station Road.
“That bridge is over a century old,” Morrison said. “It’s made of hand-cut stone, and it’s been there since around 1900.”
To keep the bridge, Eden supervisors must go to the PUC and ask the commission to change its 1997 order calling for the demolition of the structure, according to Morrison.
“We’ll have to see what happens yet when we go to the PUC,” he said.
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Besides the six bridges slated for demolition by Norfolk Southern, there are another 25 bridges and at-grade road crossings along the Enola line in Lancaster County.
As part of its 1997 order, the PUC required the railroad company to give $1.4 million to the townships to be divided up and used for the maintenance and/or demolition of those bridges and road crossings.
Bart Township was ordered to receive $150,000; Conestoga Township gets $350,000; Eden Township gets $90,000; Martic Township gets $350,000; Providence Township gets $315,000; and Sadsbury Township gets $80,000.
The only bridge that is definitely going to be demolished by a township is the one that carries Lamparter Road over the rail line in Bart Township.
Calvin Keene, chairman of the Bart supervisors, said the township is prepared to complete that task.
“We’re going to go ahead and do that and then fill in the opening and pave it as needed,” he said.
In Martic Township, PennDOT was ordered by the PUC to realign Route 324 to straighten it out and bypass the bridge that carries the Enola line over the road.
If bypass funding isn’t available within two years, the PUC order states, the township would be required to remove the bridge within one year at its expense.
Another structure with an uncertain fate is the Martic Forge trestle, which carries the line over Pequea Creek on the border between Martic and Conestoga townships.
The bridge now is the responsibility of the two townships.
According to Charles, there are supervisors in both townships who support keeping the bridge intact, but no one knows yet what that would cost.
“It is going to involve money, of course, but we haven’t gotten any estimates yet,” he said.
“In the next several weeks here, we’re going to look into some estimates and figure out where to go from there.”