Closing a railroad - Creating a trail

In 1980, an underground lake in the abandoned Montour #10 Mine was accidentally breached, sending millions of gallons of water into the adjacent Montour #4 Mine. Miners worked for eleven days and nights to plug the breach and pump out the mine, but they failed, and in late August the Consolidated Coal Company announced that Montour #4 would be shut down and sealed permanently. After the mine closed, the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad applied on May 30, 1982, to abandon ten miles of its subsidiary Montour Railroad through this area. In 1984, Peters Township purchased 7.5 miles of the abandoned railroad right-of-way through the township and created the 3.5-mile paved Arrowhead Trail. In 1989, the Montour Trail Council was formed to build a continuous 46-mile trail from Coraopolis to Clairton, and in 2003 it agreed with Peters Township to construct and maintain the trail sections not covered by the township's Arrowhead Trail.

Pennsylvania · United States