Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter January 2010

Miami Valley RailTrails Newsletter
January 2010

Dear Friends: It’s Saturday 16 January 2010 and I have trail news for you. First since it's Winter, I don’t have a lot of trail news to tell you. Trail use has gone down as the weather has gotten worse. I know that some of you ride all Winter, but I (and most of us) are fair weather riders. But I have some information about my activities I would like to share with you.

Trail Construction and Improvements.	Website Changes and Improvements
Photos & Information Wanted Section	Did You Know Department
Announcements of Upcoming Cycling Events	Webpage of the Month

Trail Construction and Improvements

New Historical Information about rail-beds for website - For the past few years, I have been trying to get some more good history on my trail pages that are former rail-beds. The following is a discussion of my attempts to get good historic information for your reading pleasure.
- Iron Horse Trail - When the Cities of Kettering and the Centerville- Washington Park District started building the trail I started to try to get historical data about the former railbed. A friend loaned me a book several years ago Narrow Gauge in Ohio: The Cincinnati Lebanon, and Northern Railway (2008) by John Hauck. Mr. Hauck, who is a Cincinnati lawyer, was gracious enough to let me use some historical photos from his book on my Iron Horse Trail in Centerville page
- Cyclists may ride where locomotives roared - In December 2008 the Dayton Daily News had an article by Steve Bennish "Cyclists may ride where locomotives roared." In it he described the old railbed with the help of a Souvenir Book dated 1912, titled: The Dayton, Lebanon and Cincinnati Railroad and Terminal Company and Tributary Industries. The booklet was found by a Kettering history buff, Ms. Joni Knopp. The article and its outstanding photos are still available on the DDN website. Click Here or above to see them. The related article and photos are available at the two links below
  - Rare photos open window into railroad's past
  - Dayton's railroad history (historic photos)
- I was reminded of this 2008 news article when this week on Monday 4 January 2010, there were two articles in the DDN about two photo collections of historic Dayton photos being donated to Wright State University. There were two images of steam trains and one of an interurban. The article names, and links to them are as follows:
  Why have I told you all of this? It’s simple. I have contacted both owners of the collections to request some historical photos to be used on my webpages of rail-trails. I have also contacted Ms. Joni Knopp to get a copy of her 1912 Souvenir Book about the Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern RR. And finally I spoke to the WSU Special Collections library to get access to other historical material.

Website Changes and Improvements

Website Statistics Page Updated - For several years, I have kept track of the activity of the website; Miami Valley RailTrails. On this page, I tell my interested readers, the type of person, age, sex, education, income, etc of my typical trail users. This data comes from Quantcast. I also have data on how many people came to the website, what they looked at and other statistical data. This data comes from Google Analytics. I have updated the data for all of the year 2009.
Iron Horse Trail Pages Updated.- I updated both pages with new construction information for Kettering and Centerville. The City of Kettering is extending the trail North from Hempstead Station Drive to the Wilmington Pike / Stroop Road intersection. This will be complete in Spring 2010. The trail was extended South from Iron Horse Park .4 miles to I-675. Links to the pages are below.
Trail Usage Statistics and Economic Benefits of Trails Page Updated - I added more information to the Trail Usage page to show some more of the economic benefits of trails. I have been adding information to this page as I get it. This page is to inform those who think a multi-use trail is a hole in the ground you throw money into. In actuality a trail is an economic engine of change that improves property values and provides opportunities for commerce.

Photos & Information Wanted Department

None this month

Did you Know Department?

On Patrol Volunteers Who Guard Our Trails - The Rails-To-Trails online magazine Winter 2009 issue had in it an article titled: “On Patrol Volunteers who Guard Our Trails”. There is a paragraph about the Greene County Parks Trail Sentinels and a two good pictures of volunteers; Ken and Diane Bish at work. Click Here or above to read the article.

Announcements of Upcoming Events

See Upcoming Events Area

The Adventure Summit 5-6 March 2010 - Five Rivers MetroParks will have their annual Adventure Summit at Wright State University's Student Union on Friday 5 March from 5PM - 9PM and Saturday 9AM - 5PM again this year. I have attended all of them and I highly recommend this event to you. There will be information on every sort of outdoor activity from walking, bicycling running, canoeing, kayaking to trekking and mountain climbing to name a few. Click on the link above or on the logo at left to access their website to select the activities you'd like to learn about!

Webpage of the Month

Every month in this portion of my newsletter, I link to one webpage (or the beginning page of a group of webpages that refer to one trail) in this space. I do this so that my readers, who may not have ever seen that webpage get an opportunity to read the page.
Railtrails, Towpaths and Other Trails in Ohio. - On these pages I have provided information to every multi-use trail in Ohio. The pages include an alphabetical list of every trail in Ohio. Or if you’d like to look by regions (such as Southwest or Northeast for example) you can click on this page to see my Counties & Regions in Ohio pages. There you can select a region of Ohio and then from it select which county you are interested in. You see a listing of every trail in that county. I provide these pages to my users who would like to ride somewhere else in Ohio besides the Miami Valley. I don’t know why they would want to do that since we have about one half of all the trails (and the best ones I think) in Ohio. The maps you will see are courtesy of the Ohio Department of Ohio Transportation Biking Page. I have a link from each picture to their webpage of trails in Ohio. Thanks ODOT!

Regards to all,

Thomas J. Recktenwalt
Webmaster
Miami Valley RailTrails
http://www.miamivalleytrails.org

If you find these newsletters and my Miami Valley RailTrails website of use to you, please pass the information on to your friends and neighbors who might enjoy our Miami Valley Trails System, the wonderful system of multi-use trails in Southwest Ohio. Then they can write me and get on the mailing list to get their own copy of this newsletter. Our trail system is wonderful for walking, running, in-line skating, birding, fishing and cycling and on some trails horseback riding. You see more wildlife from one of our trails than most anyplace else. All of my newsletters are posted to my website at the same time I send you this text version. The URL for your use is: http://www.miamivalleytrails.org/join_our_mailing_list.htm

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