Rail lines once carried Pennsylvania coal, lumber, and ore to larger markets such as Philadelphia and New York and brought back finished goods, helping fuel the American Industrial Revolution by providing fast, dependable transportation after canals had filled that role in the first half of the nineteenth century. After the Civil War, railroads outcompeted canals and dominated for the next century, until post-World War II long-distance trucking and cheap fuel stifled the railroad era. As demand for trains declined, many railroad companies went bankrupt and sold or abandoned their lines, leading Congress to pass the 1980 Staggers Rail Act and to amend the National Trails System Act in 1983 to allow rail-banking, which preserves graded, connected, open rail corridors for possible future transportation use while making them available for hiking, walking, and biking. In Pennsylvania, only seven of nearly 100 rail trails are on rail-banked corridors; the rest use land bought from railroad companies or former rail beds that reverted to private property and are publicly accessed through easements. The 165-mile D&L Trail follows dozens of miles of former rail beds, including 26 miles through Lehigh Gorge State Park, and connects with regional trails in Carbon, Lehigh, Northampton, and Bucks counties, creating a network that restores links between communities and natural places. Converting former rail beds into trails requires difficult work, including removing timber ties and steel rails, rolling ballast, filling it with soil or cinders, sometimes paving sections, and sustaining long-term maintenance through partnerships among volunteers, land managers, and local municipalities.