What is a Rail With Trail? - Who Builds and Manages the Trail? - Benefits of Rail Trails - History of the Rail Trail Movement

Mileage Counts - Promoting Trail Use - Rail Trail Events

What is a Rail With Trail?

A rail-with-trail is a public path that runs parallel to a still active rail line. There are more than 115 rail-with-trails in the country. In this case, the relationship between the trail and the rail is all the more significant. A rail-with-trails operates under a wide variety of conditions. The rail and trail share a right-of-way, and are sometimes separated by extensive fencing. Some trails are adjacent to high speed, high frequency trains, while others run alongside tourist railroads and slow moving excursion trains. A rail-with-trail can also provide a unique opportunity for connecting non-motorized transportation with public transportation, such as when a trail leads to a train station.
 

Who Builds and Manages the Trail?

The trail was constructed by community volunteers and is maintained and developed by the Pemberton Township Historic Trust (PTHT) using their own labor and equipment.
 

Benefits of Rail Trails

Trails are often seen narrowly when it comes to their benefits. People tend to focus on the recreational or environmental aspects of trails, failing to see the big picture - the total package of benefits that a trail or can provide to communities. These include public health, economic and transportation benefits, and even the effect on community pride and identity. When seen as a whole, the evidence about the far reaching benefits of trails is compelling, especially given the minimal public investment involved compared to other undertakings with the same community goals.

• Health

Trails create healthy recreation and transportation opportunities by providing people of all ages with attractive, safe, accessible places to cycle, walk, hike, and jog.  Trails help people of all ages incorporate exercise into their daily routines by connecting them with places they want or need to go. Communities that encourage physical activity by making use of the linear corridors can see a significant effect on public health and wellness. It is a well documented fact that trails are helping to create healthy communities from coast to coast.

• Transportation/Livability

In addition to providing a safe place for people to enjoy recreational activities, trails often function as viable transportation corridors. Trails can be a crucial element to a seamless urban or regional multimodal transportation system. Many areas of the country incorporate trails and similar facilities into their transit plans, relying upon trail facilities to "feed" people in to and out of transit stations in a safe and efficient manner. The ability to avoid congested streets and highways, and travel through natural areas on foot or by non-motorized means, is a large factor in a community's "livability."
 

• Conservation/Environment

Linear green spaces including trails have all the traditional conservation benefits of preserving green space, but also have additional benefits by way of their linear nature. As tools for ecology and conservation, trails help preserve important natural landscapes, provide needed links between fragmented habitats, and offer tremendous opportunities for protecting plant and animal species. They also can be useful tools for wetland preservation and improvement of air and water quality. In addition, they can allow humans to experience nature with minimal environmental impact.
 

• Economy/Revitalization

The economic effects of trails are sometimes readily apparent (as in the case of trailside businesses), and are sometimes more subtle, like when a company decides to move to a particular community because of amenities like trails. There is no question, however, that countless communities across America have experienced an economic revitalization due in whole or in part to trails.
 

• Historic Preservation/Community Identity

Many community leaders have been surprised at how trails have become sources of community identity and pride. These effects are magnified when communities use trail to highlight and provide access to historic and cultural resources. Many trails themselves preserve historically significant transportation corridors.

History of the Rail Trail Movement

It began in the mid 1960s - quietly, gradually, hesitatingly. There wasn't much fanfare. It was primarily an American phenomenon and was barely noticed in most places but pretty soon, people thought it was a good idea.

The idea was to convert abandoned or unused rail corridors into public trails. Unlike the complex railroad system that was crumbling physically and financially, the concept was simple. It didn't require or even claim an inventor. Once the tracks came out, people just naturally started walking along the old grades, socializing, exploring, discovering old railroad relics, marveling at old industrial facilities such as bridges, tunnels, abandoned mills, sidings, switches and whatever else they could find. In the snows of winter the unconventional outdoor enthusiast simply skied or wore snowshoes on the corridor, but these were days before even running and all-terrain bicycles were common, so the predominant activity was walking. Of course, none of the corridors were paved or even graded — they were simply abandoned stretches of land.

"Rails-to-Trails" is what people started calling it, and the name was catchy and descriptive enough to give the concept a tiny niche in the fledgling environmental movement that was gathering momentum, bracing for huge battles shaping over clean air and water. However, it was destined to move into the mainstream of the conservation and environmental movements. After all, it had all the ingredients: recycling, land conservation, wildlife habitat preservation and non-automobile transportation - not to mention historical preservation, physical fitness, recreation access for wheelchair users and numerous other benefits.

Today, more than 40 years later, rail trails have begun to make a significant mark, with 15,000 miles of rail-trails and over 100 million users per year, but in 1965 few Americans understood the importance of the idea. Rails-to-Trails was still a highly localized movement — "We've got an abandoned railroad track, so let's use it." Only gradually did there emerge a realization that America desperately needs a national trails system and that unused rail corridors are the perfect backbone for that network.
 

NJ Rail Trails and Trail Mileage Counts

National Rail Trails and Trail Mileage Counts

Open: 1,631 open rail trails for a total of 19,578 miles

Projects: 724 rail trail projects for a total of 8,676 miles
 

Promoting Trail Use

Rail trails encourage people of all ages and abilities to get outside and get active. Everyone wishing to get more time outdoors, for everything from physical fitness to natural exploration to a quiet stroll, should take advantage of these rail trails, which are rapidly growing in both popularity and length.

• Make bicycling on a rail trail part of your daily commute and get your workout in at the same time.

• Take a rail trail vacation and see the countryside from a perspective once enjoyed only by train conductors.

• Instead of hopping in the car to pick up milk from the store down the street, hop on the trail instead.

• Teach your kids to ride a bike on a smooth, level surface, or reintroduce yourself to the thrill of cycling that you remember from your own childhood.

Pemberton Rail Trail Events

Annual Holiday Hayride every December

Annual Haunted Hayride every October

Senior Hayrides

School Field Trips

MS Walk and Various Charity and Church Walks

Self-Guided Nature Walking Tours

Guided Historic Hay Wagon Tours

Boy/Girl Scout Projects

Special Group Tours by Request 

Free trail maps are available in the North Pemberton Station Museum or you may click here to download a printable map.

(Adobe Acrobat or other PDF reader required)

Mile marker benches are located every quarter mile along the trail. The length of the East/West Trail is 1.5 miles one way, ending where the Birmingham RR Station once stood. The trail also branches off of the Main Trail, becoming the one mile long South Trail that ends at the South Pemberton Bridge. 

These places can be easily located on the Trail Map and you can usually find volunteers inside or outside the station that will be glad to answer any questions you may have.

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3 Fort Dix Road,  Pemberton, NJ 08068 ~ (609)894-0546  Fax: (609)894-0568  Email: pthtrust@yahoo.com  Handicap Accessible
Sponsored by the Pemberton Township Historic Trust, A non-profit 501 C (3) Organization
Hours of Operation:  Wednesday - Sunday 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM ~ The Rail Trail is Open to the Public for Recreation from Dawn to Dusk

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