$150,000 grant to help preserve rail-bed trail Federal funds to go toward land acquisition

Conservation officials received word this week of a $150,000 federal funding award that will help preserve public access to a well-used multipurpose trail in northern Maine.

The funding, from the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund, will help pay for the acquisition of former Bangor and Aroostook Railroad property between Houlton and Presque Isle – land that has been used for years as a multipurpose trail, Bud Newell, manager of grants and community recreation with the Department of Conservation, said Wednesday.

Years ago, after trains stopped running on some tracks, officials tore them up, and the Department of Conservation developed an agreement with the railroad company to use the railway corridors as recreation trails. People began riding everything from snowmobiles and ATVs to bikes and horses on the “Rail Trail.”

A few years ago, though, Newell said, the company put the land up for sale.

“The concern was, historically since the rails have been pulled up, they have been used as public trails,” Newell said. “The Bangor and Aroostook was looking to sell the rail bed to anyone willing to purchase it. If that had happened, we would have lost that trail corridor. Potentially, people would no longer have had the use of that trail depending on who the new owners were.”

To preserve the public access to such corridors, conservation officials started what has become about a $1 million project to acquire the former railway lines and maintain them as public recreation trails, David Rodrigues, planner with the Conservation Department’s Offroad Vehicle Division, said Wednesday.

Last summer, officials closed a deal with the railroad company to acquire several corridors, including the 33.5-mile trail from Houlton to Presque Isle, a six-mile trail from Mapleton to Washburn, and a 5.9-mile trail from Patten to Sherman.

Rodrigues said several partners were involved in the project, including Land for Maine’s Future, which provided most of the money for the project; the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund; the Department of Conservation’s snowmobile and ATV funds; and the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Rodrigues said the cost for the land acquisition alone was $931,500. He said that although the $150,000 grant will pay for a small portion of the project, it was necessary.

“We could have lost the connections of those corridors through private ownership,” Rodrigues said. “The significance is that people using those trails – residents of the County and Maine as well as those visiting the state – will have these trails available for perpetuity now that the state owns them.”