ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, August 22, 1996 TAG: 9608220022
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
One more link in the chain that will become the completed Huckleberry Trail was officially secured Wednesday when Corning Inc. donated an easement that will allow the pathway to squeeze beside an active rail line.
Much of the new six-mile trail, now under construction, will follow the course of an abandoned railroad right-of-way that once carried a daily freight and passenger train between Cambria and Blacksburg.
However, some sections necessarily will vary from the right-of-way. One of those is behind the Corning plant, where the original rail line is still active - as drivers occasionally held up by freight cars passing the Peppers Ferry Road crossing know.
Corning has said the Huckleberry Trail can cross its property on a 1,000-foot-long, 20-foot-wide strip that generally parallels the active railroad tracks. The company will also build a fence between the trail and its industrial property, saving the project that additional construction expense.
"Corning has led the way in the entire project," said Bill Ellenbogen, president of Friends of the Huckleberry. He noted that the company gave the trail $35,000 in 1992 during the early planning stages, a gesture that endowed the project with needed capital and legitimacy.
Since then, the trail has received about $1 million in donations or grants from other public and private sources.
"Without Corning's help, none of this would have happened," Ellenbogen said.
Construction is about 75 percent complete on the 3.2-mile northern section of the Huckleberry Trail, which stretches from Blacksburg to the intersection of Hightop and Merrimac roads.
The new trail has been paved across the Virginia Tech campus to the tunnel where it passes beneath the U.S. 460 bypass. Grading work continues south of that point.
And the trail is attracting walkers, joggers and bikers even before it is completed or opened sometime this fall.
The Corning easement lies in the trail section that will connect the Hightop and Merrimac road terminus with the New River Valley Mall. Officials hope that construction of that southern section will begin next spring and be completed by the end of 1997.
It will be a more challenging project than the first phase because several bridges must be built - including one over an active Norfolk Southern rail line that is much more heavily used than the section behind the Corning plant.
Planners have lined up several other land donations or easements that will create a ready passageway for the Huckleberry Trail's southern section. But they say the legal paperwork is proceeding slowly.
Once again, Corning's donation was the first to come through, Ellenbogen said.
Local government officials who came to the Corning plant Wednesday to accept the easement talked about how the yet-to-be-completed trail has already linked together communities in a cooperative spirit.
Henry Jablonski, chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors, said the trail project has brought some old-time neighborliness to the modern era, when communities are larger and getting along can be more difficult.
"It's a great thing," said Doug Mann, Corning's plant manager. "It will benefit people in our plant and the community. We see it as a win-win."
LENGTH: Medium: 65 linesby CNB