Rails-to-trails issue hasn't gone away; negotiations continue
The idea of transforming the abandoned Tennessee Railroad into a trail for cyclists and hikers hasn’t generated much publicity or conversation in recent weeks, but it is an idea that hasn’t gone away. Negotiations over the future of the 41-mile railbed that connects Oneida to the Fork Mountain community in Anderson County continue.
Ten days ago, advocates of the rail-trail pitched their idea to Smoky Mountain Wheelmen, a bicycling club based in Knoxville.
According to Ralph Trieschmann, who is secretary of the Echoes of the Tennessee Rail Foundation, a report from Knoxville TV station WBIR based on that meeting that railroad owner R.J. Corman is negotiating exclusively with a private group in Scott County for ownership of the railbed was incorrect. Instead, Corman is negotiating — through National Salvage, the firm it contracted with to remove the rails and timbers from the railroad — with Trust for Public Lands. Trieschmann described those negotiations as progressing in a positive direction.
TPL is a late player to the game, but one that has a lot of muscle to flex. It is a nationally-recognized conservation group with offices in San Francisco and Denver, and was recruited to the effort by Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, the Oak Ridge-based nonprofit that spearheaded the rail-trail effort.
TCWP filed a Notice of Interim Trail Use with the federal Surface Transportation Board soon after R.J. Corman filed its paperwork to abandon the railroad in 2020. The STB has since granted several extensions to the original 12-month NITU, and this past spring granted what it said would be the last one-year extension it would grant. That gives TCWP and TPL until Spring 2026 to negotiate a purchase of the 41-mile railbed from Corman.
The NITU requires Corman to leave the railbed grading and bridges intact for potential future use as a railroad with an interim use as a recreational trail — a railbed preservation plan that was established by Congress in the 1980s and later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Though R.J. Corman owns most of the Tennessee Railroad corridor fee-simple, the rails-to-trails program established by Congress provides a broader window for keeping railbeds intact by stipulating that temporary easements granted when railroads were built remain in place after a NITU has been filed.
Trieschmann said last week that concrete barriers have been acquired and will be placed at vehicular access points along the railroad in an effort to keep trespassers on ATVs off the railbed. Trespassing off-road riders have been a primary concern cited by landowners along the railroad who are opposed to the rail-trail, some of whom have dealt with a criminal element in the form of thieves who use the now-railless railroad grade to access private property, and others who have dealt with litter on their property left by trespassers.
Scott County Commission unanimously passed a resolution of non-support earlier this year that states its opposition to the plan for a recreational trail, and the Town of Huntsville has also taken a position against the rail-trail.