Trail Report:Trail Report:
Adapted from the June-July 1997 North Star: The Magazine of the North Country Trail.
April 24 marked the first certification, of 6.1 miles, of what will eventually be over 40 miles of North Country Trail following the Northwest Ohio Rails to Trails Association's (NORTA) Cannonball Trail.
NORTA and the Cannonball are new players on the North Country Trail scene, and the route fills a long-sought hope of finding a good route to connect the Buckeye Trail to southern Michigan.
The first segments of what will eventually be a 64-mile rail trail were opened to the public two years ago, and it's proving to be a popular trail already, especially for joggers, hikers, horseback riders and bicyclists. Bicycling, in fact, was one of the forces that brought the trail about, and the Cannonball is a good example of a treadway appropriate to mountain bike use. You wouldn't expect it in a place as far south as Ohio, but the trail is also regularly used by a couple of dogsledders for training their racing teams. Use is steadily increasing as the completed trail grows longer.
Understandably, the trail is rather flat -- flat as the surrounding countryside -- and pretty much straight, arrowing across farm fields, through patches of woods, small towns and suburban areas. It manages to do a good job of avoiding grubby industrial areas. It provides a nice off-road route through an area where prospects for an off-road NCNST route looked pretty hopeless before the Cannonball came along.
The trail, a former Norfolk Southern, and previously Wabash, rail line, has two legs -- the southern leg, from Liberty Center, Ohio, to Maumee, south of Toledo, then west on the northern leg to Montpelier, nearly at the Indiana state line. The NCNST won't use all of this; a couple miles east of the Lucas County line, the route will leave the Cannonball, and take a shortcut north through Toledo's Oak Openings Metropark to reach the northern leg, and then, many miles to the west, will leave the Cannonball near West Unity, east of Montpelier and turn north into Michigan.
A possible route linking the Cannonball Trail with the Buckeye Trail at Florida, to the southwest of Liberty Center, has been identified along old Miami and Erie Canal lands, much of which are still in public ownership, and through state and city parks. NORTA has expressed an interest in developing this route, though understandably, it will have to wait until the rest of the Cannonball Trail can be opened to the public. Currently, the southern leg is fully open, but the northern leg is only officially open in Lucas County. Hopes are to officially open the trail another ten miles westward this year, though the trail can be followed now.
What's holding up the official opening is the need to remove the old cobblestone rail ballast on the westernmost parts of the northern segments, put decking and railing on several old rail bridges, the longest of which is approximately 180 feet, and do follow-up treadway work. The trail will finally have a compacted dirt/cinder pathway.
The initial 6.1 miles certified as parts of the NCNST were on the southern leg in Fulton and Henry Counties, where NORTA owns the trailway. The route in Lucas County is owned by a regional council of governments; certification of another 4.2 miles there and another 3.5 miles in Oak Openings Metropark is pending. In addition, in April NORTA applied for Affiliate status in the North Country Trail Association, and the NCTA board approved it at their May meeting, making NORTA the NCTA's fourth affiliate, joining the Buckeye Trail Association, Finger Lakes Trail Association, and AYH-Pittsburgh.
NORTA is headed by Ed Snyder of Swanton, OH, and Gene Markley, of Delta, OH, is the vice-president. They have a small, but active core of volunteers that have spent many hours in trail development.
What separates the Cannonball from many other rail trails is the fact that it's not a government project, but a non-profit organization project, and other than the initial grant of land, the trail has received little funding in the form of grants from governments. Financially, in fact, it's largely self-supporting, mostly from easements and leases from landowners, and from a large easement from Fulton County to use the trail as the route of a water line to a new steel plant near Delta. The water line not only supplied $134,000 to NORTA, but part of the contract was to finish the treadway on the northern leg on the section the water line uses.
Another income source the trail has been provided has been in the sale of tons of old cobblestone ballast used on the rail line. It's difficult to walk on; something would have had to have been done about it, anyway, and it's providing a funding source for finishing the trail.
The funding has allowed NORTA and their small group of dedicated volunteers to move ahead rapidly with finishing and maintaining the trail. The bridge decking work, however, is taking time, as the Cannonball has several bridges of varying designs. Some of the bridges, such as the one near Neapolis on the southern leg, shown above, will have a "covered bridge" style appearance, though they won't be true covered bridges, where the trusswork in the walls of the bridge provide a major portion of the bridge's strength.
In addition to the bridges, NORTA plans a meeting room/information center/storage building where the trail's northern leg crosses Ohio SR 109 south of Delta. The funding has also allowed NORTA to purchase machinery, such as grading equipment, a tractor, and sprayers needed to keep the many miles of trail open with a small crew.
For more information on NORTA and the Cannonball Trail, you can call the NORTA hotline at 1-800-951-4788, write them at PO Box 234, Delta, OH, 43515, or see their website at http://www.toltbbs.com/~norta/. They can be e-mailed at "pmgNORTA@aol.com".
The map below shows only the southern leg and the easternmost part of the northern leg of the Cannonball Trail used by the NCNST, and the proposed section in Oak Openings Metropark.
