What do you hope to accomplish
through the Center for Railway
Tourism?
Our first goal is to attract young people
and prepare them for careers in railway
heritage tourism. We are developing course
materials that can be delivered by distance
education for those who want to work in
railway tourism elsewhere in the country.
Consider this: Roughly 1,000 communi-
ties in America depend on railway heritage
tourism for some part of their economic
development. There are 500 to 700 excur-
sion railways or museum operations, plus
train-watching spots, model railroads and
more. If you add the more than 1,800 rail-
trails in the country, which I consider to
be part of our railway heritage, you begin
to understand how important the work of
the center could be.
Our second goal is to develop materi-
als and resources to help railway heritage
tourism venues better explain and more
effectively market their attractions.
The third goal is to educate the public
on the importance of these things.
The Center for Railway Tourism
brings us all together—people interested
in railway preservation and interpreta-
tion, rail-trails, excursion railways, model
railroading, railroad community history
and museums. It’s a natural.
In the railfan community, have
you encountered opposition to
supporters of rail-trails?
Some in the railroad heritage commu-
nity think Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
is the enemy. I’m told some developers
are having a really rough time with local
rail-trail advocates. Preservationists aim
to maintain the rail lines for potential or
continued operation of trains, either for
commerce or excursions. On the other
hand, those who support rail-trails hope
to develop open paths for biking, hiking
and other recreation. Some on both sides
see this as an either/or question—either
a trail or a rail line. But one of the things
I’m working on with Rails-to-Trails
Conservancy and the Association of
Tourist Railroads and Railway Museums
getting on your bicycle or walking. That’s
why I find rail-trails fascinating. Plus, it’s
good low-impact exercise.
In the end, we have several things in
common, particularly a desire to preserve
a unique artifact: a railroad’s right-of-way.
We share a passion for retaining a sense
of place, for restoring old structures, for
something as basic as getting out and
about. That’s the focus I want the center
to concentrate on.
How is the rail-trail effort critical to
conserving corridors and restoring
historic depots and other historic
infrastructure?
The route of the railroad is what is valu-
able, as a trail and as the right-of-way if
the rail line were ever to be reactivated.
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy is the only
organization fighting at a national level,
and in the law courts, to protect those
corridors. If that right-of-way is broken
up and sold to individual landowners,
or if the route is abandoned and nobody
comes forward to protect it, it’s gone.
Trail groups do a lot of work at the
national level to restore old stations
and other locales for use as trailheads. I
applaud any effort to restore and protect
what were: at one time, the very hearts of
railroad communities.
In reality, neither Rails-to-Trails
Conservancy nor a rail-history group can
demand that a line be abandoned for an
excursion operation or a trail. Yes, tension
does appear to exist between some parts
of the rail-heritage and trail-conservancy
communities over the possible use of
former rail lines. But I’m just a fan of rail-
road history in all its manifestations. Rail-
trails. Restored equipment and excursions.
Museums. Model railroads. Art, literature
and music. Movies. You name it. I see
cooperation on these common delights
leading to good things on both sides.
Therese Cox is a retired newspaper reporter
living in Charleston, W.Va. She enjoys riding
her bike on West Virginia’s Greenbrier River
Trail, a recent inductee into Rails-to-Trails
Conservancy’s Rail-Trail Hall of Fame.
is the development of examples in which
cooperation has benefited both par-
ties. That may take several forms, from
a trail radiating out from a museum or
excursion railroad, which is the case here
in Elkins, to excursion trains hauling
bicycles to a trailhead, and trails running
alongside excursion routes.
The railway heritage community needs
to do market research so it can dem-
onstrate how an excursion railroad will
benefit the community. This is something
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy does expertly,
regarding trails.
I see partnerships as an important
component of heritage tourism. Elkins is
strengthened by having three, four, five
or six connections to railroad history, all
of which are marketed. People who come
here to ride the Allegheny Highlands
Trail also see the excursion railroad.
They say, “How interesting.” Then they
visit the two mansions built by the fel-
lows who started the rail line: Davis and
Elkins. “Look,” they say, “there’s also an
interesting museum here devoted to West
Virginia’s railroads.” That partnership is
what benefits the community.
There’s a growing awareness among
railway heritage preservation profession-
als of the benefit of working with nearby
rail-trail organizations. The result may be
building a rails-with-trails partnership,
locating heritage displays in facilities that
also serve as trailheads, or working to
create signage along rail-trails that calls
attention to the railroad history found
there. The progressive members of both
communities—railfans and trail advo-
cates—see the need and desirability of
working together for their community’s
benefit.
How can these advocates support
both rail lines and trails?
I think about that a lot. My love is rail-
road history. The good rail-trails have his-
torical markers or traces of the infrastruc-
ture that still exist. The trails are like the
railroads that once ran on them. What
you see can only be seen from the trail.
You can’t get there any other way than by
rails
to
trails
u
spring/summer.14
15