May 24 2023
The final vestiges of Winter appear to be behind us. As
for the mainline of ERTS, a couple notes.
The Northern section of ERTS has been extended. Now completed, the trail from Duck to Gassaway is now officially a part of the State Park and being patrolled and maintained by DNR crews.
In the South, Hartland to Queen Shoals, that portion has been hung up due to a land dispute between property owners in the area and the railroad owners. That hold up appears to be over. Construction crews are on the rights of way now preparing that stretch for hiking, biking and horseback riding.
This section will be a little different from the rest of ERTS. This trail rights of way will be considered a dual use gravel road where vehicles will be allowed access.
The Northern section of ERTS has been extended. Now completed, the trail from Duck to Gassaway is now officially a part of the State Park and being patrolled and maintained by DNR crews.
In the South, Hartland to Queen Shoals, that portion has been hung up due to a land dispute between property owners in the area and the railroad owners. That hold up appears to be over. Construction crews are on the rights of way now preparing that stretch for hiking, biking and horseback riding.
This section will be a little different from the rest of ERTS. This trail rights of way will be considered a dual use gravel road where vehicles will be allowed access.
In addition to the main line hiking trail, the old
BC&G RR tracks have been reconstructed in prep for
some kind of rail ride service. The 16 miles are now
complete.
Soliciting for rail ride contractors (vendors) has slowed waaaay down due to a glitch in thinking by the Central Appalachia Empowerment Zone, CAEZ.
Know what we're talking about? A bunch don't. So....
CAEZ owns a small underused campground bordering the BC&G rights of way in Dundon. To attract, lure in, a top notch rail ride vendor, infrastructure has be offered. For instance, there is a need for a vendor ticket office, trinket store, maintenance building, parking lot and more.
The CAEZ campground meets those needs and is located perfectly. The one hang up is CAEZ has twice voted to "gift" the campground to the State for tourism use. After each of those votes to gift, the CAEZ has gone in a tailspin and taken back their offer. CAEZ leadership has changed hands twice in the last four months!
During a recent CAEZ Board meeting, Commissioner of the W Va Rail Authority, Cindy Butler, told the group, with bidding and awarding of a contract coming soon, she needed to have a solid commitment to gift the campground or else, some other space "option" will be secured for the vendors. So far, as of this date, the CAEZ has made no official decision on the give away.
It gets worse readers. The deadline for submitting bids for the rail rides has been extended from May 15th to June 23rd.
Let's say a vendor is approved in July 2023, that means there's not enough time to get things up and running in 2023. Because of CAEZ's lack of leadership and decision making disability, County Clay will have the new tourism draw delayed by a year or so. Thank you CAEZ.
When that Ms Butler told em, there are options, we think there are three options on the table. Either of the three options will leave the CAEZ campground in the dust as it rots away due to little use.
Option 1 is the big hay field in Cressmont which would be an excellent location for the needed infrastructure plus, it's large enough to grow its own campground / RV park.
Option 2 is down closed to the main line at what's called Newt Bragg's house and property. It's location is the best part of that space which is already owned by the Elk River Trail Foundation.
Option 3 is a vacant lot just up creek from the Little League Field also in Dundon. Although it's not large enough for future expansions, it would serve as a starter place until the CAEZ organization folds up and disappears freeing up their campground for State development and tourism use.
As has been said many times over, County Clay has a way of screwing up even an anvil. For this time around, it's CAEZ that's doing the screwing up.
AW
Soliciting for rail ride contractors (vendors) has slowed waaaay down due to a glitch in thinking by the Central Appalachia Empowerment Zone, CAEZ.
Know what we're talking about? A bunch don't. So....
CAEZ owns a small underused campground bordering the BC&G rights of way in Dundon. To attract, lure in, a top notch rail ride vendor, infrastructure has be offered. For instance, there is a need for a vendor ticket office, trinket store, maintenance building, parking lot and more.
The CAEZ campground meets those needs and is located perfectly. The one hang up is CAEZ has twice voted to "gift" the campground to the State for tourism use. After each of those votes to gift, the CAEZ has gone in a tailspin and taken back their offer. CAEZ leadership has changed hands twice in the last four months!
During a recent CAEZ Board meeting, Commissioner of the W Va Rail Authority, Cindy Butler, told the group, with bidding and awarding of a contract coming soon, she needed to have a solid commitment to gift the campground or else, some other space "option" will be secured for the vendors. So far, as of this date, the CAEZ has made no official decision on the give away.
It gets worse readers. The deadline for submitting bids for the rail rides has been extended from May 15th to June 23rd.
Let's say a vendor is approved in July 2023, that means there's not enough time to get things up and running in 2023. Because of CAEZ's lack of leadership and decision making disability, County Clay will have the new tourism draw delayed by a year or so. Thank you CAEZ.
When that Ms Butler told em, there are options, we think there are three options on the table. Either of the three options will leave the CAEZ campground in the dust as it rots away due to little use.
Option 1 is the big hay field in Cressmont which would be an excellent location for the needed infrastructure plus, it's large enough to grow its own campground / RV park.
Option 2 is down closed to the main line at what's called Newt Bragg's house and property. It's location is the best part of that space which is already owned by the Elk River Trail Foundation.
Option 3 is a vacant lot just up creek from the Little League Field also in Dundon. Although it's not large enough for future expansions, it would serve as a starter place until the CAEZ organization folds up and disappears freeing up their campground for State development and tourism use.
As has been said many times over, County Clay has a way of screwing up even an anvil. For this time around, it's CAEZ that's doing the screwing up.
AW
Although approved for use, we think there might be a few nuts missing on the BC&G RR
