Rails to trails: 41-mile Highlander route proposed
Clinton resident and Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning member John Cosgrove spoke about a possible hiking and cycling trail in the New River area at the Monday Sept. 22, Clinton City Council meeting. (photo:Ben Pounds )
This Rails to Trails project, not to be confused with a similar one within the city of Oak Ridge, would run through parts of Anderson, Campbell and Scott Counties.
It would follow the former Tennessee Raiload line owned by the R.J. Corman Railroad Company.
Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, an Oak Ridge nonprofit, is promoting the project.
Even though it does not go through Clinton, the Clinton City Council unanimously voted to show support for the project called the Highlander Trail at its Monday, Sept. 22 meeting.
Earlier, the Norris City Council also passed a resolution favoring the trail.
But the Rocky Top City Council last Thursday night declined to consider a resolution of support, with Mayor Kerry Templin reporting he had received complaints from residents along the proposed trail
They oppose “stangers walking through their yards,” Templin said.
“I don’t feel like passing a resolution about something that doesn’t affect us,” he said. The trail is closer to Rocky Top than any other Anderson County city.
Clinton resident and Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning member John Cosgrove explained the project at the Clinton council meeting.
He said his organization was partnering with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s Office of Outdoor Recreation.
The state officials, he said, like it when local governments pass resolutions supporting these projects.
He said it helps secure funding from the state.
“They’ve really proven to be strong economic engines, far beyond the path of the trail,” Cosgrove told the Clinton council regarding similar rails-to-trails projects, such as the Virginia Creeper Trail.
He told The Courier News the trail included historical locations like an old coal-washing plant and abandoned excursion train in Devonia.
He also said the trail will be “particularly scenic” due to running alongside the New River.
“Very rural, but there are some small communities along the way,” he said. “There’s a lot of interesting history of coal and railroad history.”
The trail would follow the former Tennessee Railroad line from Oneida to Devonia that R.J. Corman bought in 2010, and then abandoned in 2013 after the last coal mine on the route, near Devonia, shut down.
In 2019, R.J. Corman sought permission from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to pull up the rails along the route, but that action was held up by objections from the Anderson, Scott and Campbell county governments.
A coalition led by Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank sought to keep the rail line in place for possible future freight use.
There also was an Arkansas company that tried to buy the line from R.J. Corman to put in a scenic passenger excursion railroad along the route.
Corman had shut down a similar excursion line almost immediately after it took over the route in 2010, and the engine and passenger cars are still sitting on the tracks in Devonia.
