Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 13, 1993 TAG: 9306110053
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY METRO
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AUSTINVILLE LENGTH: Long
You can't miss it. It's marked with a "No Trespassing" sign.
This two-mile stretch resembles other sections of the 57-mile trail. It's an abandoned right of way that once guided freight trains along the river bank between Pulaski and Galax - well-graded, scenic and peaceful.
Yet few of the many hikers, bicyclers or horseback riders who travel the New River Trail cross this section, due to obstacles more daunting than a mountain or a river.
At issue is ownership of the abandoned right of way. Does it belong to the state or to the farm it crosses?
Until that question is resolved, this is the New River Trail's missing link.
Trail proponents are eager for the New River Trail to be unified. Unless this final section is acquired, the trail and the state park can't serve as the Southwest Virginia tourism boon they envision.
James H. Neuhoff's concerns are closer to home. The 80-foot-wide right of way slices across the farm he operates, separating 66 acres of fertile bottom land from the rest of his large livestock operation.
Neuhoff maintains the right of way is legally his. Moreover, he and his neighbors fear a trail would lower property values and create all sorts of access problems, making it easier for the property to be vandalized.
"I really feel the state should improve the state parks we have now," Neuhoff said. "Maybe we have enough state parks."
Overall, the New River Trail State Park has developed rapidly since the railroad right of way was abandoned by Norfolk Southern in the mid-1980s. It is already known as one of the East Coast's best multiuse trails.
Park Superintendent Mark Hufeisen says 95,000 people were counted on the trail last year. Use has increased about 30 percent over the past few years.
Still, anyone who wants to go end-to-end has to detour on secondary roads around the posted section - or trespass.
"Getting off the trail takes away from the experience," said Hufeisen. It's cumbersome for users to spot cars on either end of the detour, and the secondary roads aren't as safe, he said.
Additionally, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation says it can't effectively market the trail as a regional tourist attraction until it is complete. The state park has new trail maps that cannot be distributed until corrected to show the breach.
"It's hurt us," said Tim Skinner, regional manager of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, has led promotional hikes on sections of the New River Trail and views a completed trail as a "tremendous asset" for promoting environmental tourism and economic growth.
Despite all the clamor, the trail remains bisected and will likely continue to be so, at least for the near future. For now, Neuhoff Farms holds the land and the cards.
Three years ago, the state asked a judge to decide whether it was entitled to the right of way once Norfolk Southern yanked up the tracks.
Two weeks ago, Wythe County Circuit Judge Willis A. Woods said no.
Citing a "rather convoluted history," Woods said the railroad got an easement to build a line in the 1880s. For nearly a century, the railroad carried timber, livestock, ore and passengers between small Southwest Virginia towns such as Ivanhoe, Galax, Fries, Austinville and Pulaski.
Woods said the railroad's deed clearly stated the right of way would revert to the landowner once the rail line was abandoned.
However, during the intervening century, the property changed hands and a messy inheritance suit occurred, both of which served to cloud the issue of who would receive the abandoned easement.
Illegible, 19th-century handwritten deeds didn't help the process.
Nonetheless, Woods ruled that Neuhoff Farms now owns the land originally crossed by the 1880s easement and is entitled to the 80-foot corridor, amounting to about 22 acres.
The judge granted two small tracts within the corridor to the state. On these sites are a depot and a station house. Woods said these two properties were bought outright and unconditionally by the railroad from the 1880 property owners, and thus could be directly donated to the state.
"We were a little bit disappointed," said Wayne Perkins, a Wytheville resident who is an officer of the Friends of the New River Trail, a volunteer organization that helps with trail upkeep and promotion.
Perkins said trail supporters hoped the judge would award the right of way to the state, so the missing link could be eliminated.
"We're not giving up," he said. "We're still very committed to seeing the trail completed. It's just a matter of taking things one step at a time."
Skinner said the state has a number of follow-up options, including negotiating with Neuhoff for donation or sale of the right of way or seeking a forced sale through condemnation.
Having the court condemn the land would be a last resort, politically incorrect step the state would prefer to avoid, he said.
Boucher, asked about the apparent impasse, said the state should "take whatever steps are necessary" to complete the trail. He said he assumes community sentiment also favors a completed trail.
Neuhoff, president of Neuhoff Farms, may be surrounded by trail supporters, but he's not giving in.
"I've been approached by a lot of neighbors who say they don't want a trail in there," he said.
Neuhoff said he has "a lot of concerns," including isolation of the river bottom tract from the rest of his 2,100-acre farm by the trail, trespassing and vandalism by trail users and the prospect of being sued if a trail user is injured on his land.
The missing link isn't deterring use of the New River Trail, he said, nor are signs or barricades keeping trail users off his posted land.
The trail's legal hang-up, and Neuhoff's concerns, are common to trail projects elsewhere in America, said Phillipe Crist of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a Washington-based non-profit group that offers technical aid to trail organizations.
"Landowners are often-times fearful or angry" about the potential impact trails might have on their property, he said. "Almost all those fears are overblown or non-existent."
Boucher, too, is willing to defend trail users. "Since the New River Trail was implemented, vandalism has not been a problem. Trail users are outdoor-oriented. They're the kind of people who take care of the land."
Crist says he's been on the New River Trail and rates it among the nation's finest. "It's almost a model."
Neuhoff said the next step is up to the state.
Some preliminary discussions have occurred between Neuhoff and the state about the property, but nothing has happened since the matter of ownership went to court.
Now that ownership is clarified, the state hopes serious negotiations can begin. Even if an agreement is reached, the land can't be bought until funds are appropriated by the General Assembly.
by CNB