Trolley Trail

May 10, 2022 - Gwen Loose and Frank Kempf of the York County Rail Trail Authority provided an update of the Hanover Trolley Trail. The county entered into a license agreement with Met-Ed in 1977 allowing development of a recreational trail within the historic York-Hanover Trolley Line, but the project lay dormant while the county focused attention and resources on developing the Heritage Rail Trail along the county-owned section of the Northern Central Railway. Then in 2000, with the Heritage Rail Trail complete from the Maryland line to York, the Rail Trail Authority pivoted its attention to the Met-Ed corridor. The license agreement was renewed in 2007, and by 2013, two 2-mile sections of rail trail were built and opened to the public: one section in Hanover-Penn Township and another section in Spring Grove-Jackson Township.Current work includes trail design and permitting for about 7.1 miles of the dormant rail line, for restoration of two sections of Oil Creek that have undermined the rail corridor in Heidelberg Township, and construction of a .3-mile section of trail in Spring Grove borough. Over the next two years, two sections of Oil Creek in Heidelberg Township will be restored, allowing trail construction in that township to begin. East of Spring Grove, trail construction will extend toward the Jackson-West Manchester township border, and as zoning restrictions in West Manchester Township are addressed, the trail will be constructed into the village of Bair. Two previous feasibility studies examined routes for connecting the Hanover Trolley Trail to the Heritage Rail Trail. The Rail Trail Authority will continue its efforts to identify a connection between these two long-distance rail trails.