Early Warning System Alerts

Alerting local communities of rail abandonments for corridor preservation and future trail use

RTC monitors requests filed with the Surface Transportation Board (the federal agency that oversees rail transactions) and notifies community activists and officials of impending abandonments. Early Warning System alerts, a service of our TrailNation™ Collaborative, include links to tools and information needed to successfully preserve rail corridors for public trail use through railbanking.

Federal regulations require interested parties to request railbanking within 30 to 45 days, so without this program, many community leaders would learn of rail abandonments too late.

If you would like to receive Early Warning System alerts of pending rail abandonments in your area, please join our TrailNation™ Collaborative. By joining, you will receive—

• News and information relevant to building and managing trails;
• Early Warning System notifications of railroad abandonments in your state;
• Information about policies that directly impact trails and how they affect you; and
• Information about grants and other opportunities to improve and connect the trails you manage and support;

Working together, we can help preserve railroad corridors and create a robust network of trails that shape how people live, work and play in communities across America.

Early Warning System Gets Results

Communities across the nation have reacted to our alerts and taken action to railbank corridors for trail use. Some rail-trails that have benefited from our Early Warning System alerts include the following:

• Phoenix Trail, City of College Park, Ga.
• Erie Cattaraugus Rail Trail (planned), Erie and Cattaraugus Counties, N.Y.
• El Paseo extension (planned), City of Chicago, Ill.
• Trail on Weber Industrial Lead (planned), City of Chicago and Village of Lincolnwood, Ill.