Eastern Shore officials hope to receive a pair of grants that would leave just four miles of a planned 49-mile trail unfunded.
Work is slated to begin on the Eastern Shore of Virginia Rail Trail next year, which will span most of the Shore. Supervisors from Accomack and Northampton counties in August unanimously supported applications for Virginia Department of Transportation funds to cover the cost of two segments of the trail.
Supervisors from both Accomack and Northampton counties in August unanimously supported applications for Virginia Department of Transportation funds to cover the cost of two additional segments of what’s been coined the Eastern Shore Rail Trail.
The concept would see the conversion of the Bay Coast Railroad, formerly the Eastern Shore Railroad and once serving as the economic backbone of the Eastern Shore after being constructed in 1884, transformed into a walking and biking trail.
The idea for the multipurpose trail came about more than four years ago, according to Ron Wolff, executive director of the Eastern Shore Rail Trail Foundation.
A former member of Accomack County’s Board of Supervisors, Wolff said decreasing numbers of rail customers led transportation officials to consider possibilities for the rail corridor’s future. The most recent rail operator ceased operations in 2018, and the tracks and ties were removed in 2021.
“You can’t operate a business, particularly a railroad, without customers,” Wolff said. “We tried to engage those same (customers) again to see if they were interested in rail service and all of them, their response was ‘No, we’ve got other means.’”
That’s when collective research turned up the concept of railbanking. Railbanking was coined by the National Trails Systems Act in 1983, created as a way to preserve railroads after operators cease service.
“We found that, through the federal government, you can railbank the entire corridor,” Wolff said.
Railbanking allows repurposing a railroad as a trail, leaving the route unchanged – though removing the tracks and ties – should a viable rail venture choose to return.
The process involves an application with the federal Surface Transportation Board, which regulates railroads nationwide. When word got out that the railroad was going to be abandoned, calls from trail developers started flowing in.
It led Wolff, then on the Accomack-Northampton Transportation District Commission, and others to question why the localities couldn’t develop a trail on their own.
“We began to look at other trails around the Commonwealth to see how they made that conversion from railroad to trail, and what we saw was really eye-opening,” Wolff said. “Near about every place we went and looked, the rail and the rail trail project went through old historic railroad towns.”
When railroads ceased operating, it spelled the “death knell” for those communities – something Wolff compared to the creation of U.S. Route 13 on the Eastern Shore and how it bypassed historic towns.
But Wolff saw something different in towns where trails were developed in lieu of rail operations.
“We saw that businesses began to spring up,” he said. “Whether it be a bicycle shop, an ice cream parlor, a brewery, a restaurant, bed and breakfast – it kind of revitalized the towns… They became economically viable again.”
Wolff is hopeful the same can happen for the upwards of a dozen towns dotting the rail corridor on the Eastern Shore.
“Tourism dollars are so important,” Wolff said. “You take a weekend or three days to ride on the trail, but you package that with a fishing trip, a trip out to one of the barrier islands … and you make a three-day vacation into a five- or seven-day vacation.”
Wolff also sees the rail trail as an alternative to highway travel.
“If you’re not traveling 70 (miles per hour on Route 13), you’re not even on the road – it’s very dangerous,” he said.
Raising the funds for the project has occurred piecemeal between Accomack and Northampton. Federal and state grant dollars, awarded over multiple years, have brought the project close to the halfway point. And if approved, the two pending Smart Scale grant applications submitted to the state would bring the project just short of the finish line.
“It would leave only about a four mile portion that would be unfunded in Accomack County,” Wolff said. “That would be from Parksley to Hallwood.”
Wolff is optimistic that the grants will be accepted, noting the current local contribution to the funding pool has been just $50,000.
But not everyone has been supportive of the project. Companies like the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad (NYP&N) requested the removal of tracks be delayed in 2021. The Rail Enterprise Group also forwarded proposals, though not a financial commitment, for the railroad’s revival that would involve the development of warehouses and distribution services along the line.
Wolff has also heard resident concern, particularly from rural residents and the farming community.
“The fear of the unknown is what drives people to be scared,” Wolff said. “Their concerns are very, very real.”
Wolff said he’s heard many of them while touring the community talking up the trail project, including a recent talk at the annual Farm Bureau meeting in Northampton. Much of the concern centers around potential theft and trespassing on farmland by out-of-towners coming to the Eastern Shore for the trail.
“We need to address that, ease their concerns, and find a workable solution that’s good for everybody,” said Wolff. “We’re not inventing the wheel here. There’s other trails that have farms right next to them – what do they do?”
That solution is still a work-in-progress.
In the meantime, Wolff continues to engage with his neighbors on the trail as it edges towards full funding and a 2025 start date on the first phase of construction which will stretch from Cape Charles to Cheriton.
“We hope to have it done before the end of 2025, the early part of 2026 would be the latest,” he said. “I hope that it leaves as much a legacy as the railroad has as we move into the future.”
