When a railroad stops using a line in the United States, the fate of the right-of-way is rarely straightforward. The land under most American railroad tracks was granted, donated, or acquired under terms that tied its continued ownership to the railroad's active use of it for transportation. When that use ends, the corridor can revert to adjacent landowners, be acquired by public agencies, or—if the proper legal procedures are followed in time—be preserved as a continuous public trail corridor through the mechanism of railbanking established by the National Trails System Act of 1983. That legal framework is the foundation on which the rails-to-trails movement has built more than 25,000 miles of public trail across the country since the mid-1980s, converting former railroad corridors into recreational assets in communities that the coal and timber industries once connected and then left behind.
In Mercer County, the most prominent rail-to-trail project involves a segment of the former Virginian Railway main line, known locally as the Virginian Trail. The project has aimed to convert approximately ten miles of former VGN corridor into a multi-use trail accessible for hiking, cycling, and other non-motorized recreation. The Virginian Railway's main line through Mercer County was engineered for maximum tonnage efficiency—relatively gentle grades by Appalachian standards, sweeping curves, and generous clearances designed for 120-ton coal gondolas. Those same engineering characteristics make the former VGN corridor exceptionally attractive for trail conversion; the grades that allowed enormous coal trains to operate without excessive climbing effort also produce a walking and cycling surface accessible to users of varied fitness levels, including families with young children and older adults.
West Virginia has a longer and more successful history with rail-to-trail conversion than is sometimes recognized outside the state. The Greenbrier River Trail in Pocahontas County—78 miles developed on the former Chesapeake & Ohio branch line along the Greenbrier River—is the most prominent example and has become one of the most popular rail-trails in the mid-Atlantic region, drawing tens of thousands of visitors annually to one of the state's most economically challenged counties and supporting a genuine recreation economy in communities where the railroad had been the previous economic anchor. The Blackwater Canyon Trail, the Mon River Trail, and several shorter conversions in the northern part of the state demonstrate that West Virginia possesses both the will and the institutional capacity to execute rail-to-trail projects. The challenge in Mercer County is not primarily one of vision or capability; it is one of legal and physical preconditions.
The most significant challenge specific to Mercer County is Norfolk Southern's continued ownership of the former N&W Bluestone Branch right-of-way. As documented elsewhere in this series, NS has never formally abandoned the Bluestone Branch despite no freight service since 1984. A railroad corridor that is legally active—even if physically dormant—cannot be converted to a public trail without the owning railroad's consent, because the Surface Transportation Board's railbanking procedures are triggered only when a railroad files to abandon a line. Converting an NS-owned, non-abandoned corridor requires either purchasing the right-of-way outright or negotiating a use agreement under which NS retains the right to reclaim the corridor for future rail service. NS's willingness to engage such negotiations varies by corridor and by the railroad's assessment of future freight potential; for a corridor that has seen no traffic in forty years, the calculus might seem straightforward, but NS's institutional interest in preserving optionality means that formal abandonment is not a step the company takes lightly or quickly.
Environmental remediation represents a second category of challenge. Former railroad beds typically contain contaminated materials accumulated over decades of coal and chemical freight traffic: diesel fuel, lubricating oils, herbicides used for right-of-way vegetation control, and in coal country, coal dust and fine particulates deposited along the entire length of the corridor. Trail conversion requires assessment of these materials and, where contamination exceeds acceptable thresholds for public recreational use, physical remediation before the trail can be opened. The cost of remediation varies enormously depending on the length of corridor and the nature of the contamination, and it can transform a project that appears economically viable in concept into a financially challenging proposition in practice.
The economic case for rail-to-trail conversion in a region like southern West Virginia is compelling on its own terms and well-supported by documented evidence from comparable projects. Studies by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and state economic development agencies have consistently found that multi-use trails generate direct tourism spending, increase property values along the trail corridor, and provide long-term recreational infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of conventional economic development. For Mercer County communities that have experienced sustained economic contraction following coal's decline, a trail through the scenic Bluestone River valley and the historic communities of Bramwell and Montcalm offers a qualitatively different economic development tool than the industrial site recruitment model that dominated regional planning during the coal era—one that draws on the county's natural and cultural assets rather than competing with lower-cost industrial locations elsewhere.
The West Virginia Rails-to-Trails Council and the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy both maintain current project information on their websites, and they are the most reliable sources for tracking which Mercer County corridors are under active consideration for conversion, what legal and funding steps have been completed, and what the realistic timeline for any given project might be. For anyone who loves both railroad history and outdoor recreation, these projects represent one of the most meaningful intersections between the two: the physical re-use of a century of industrial infrastructure as a lasting public asset, carrying its historical character forward in a new form.