Heritage Rail Trail County Park
This entry starts a new category. Originally I had put walking related to rail trails in the “Lancaster County walking” category, but I only know of two and have been to both and so began to expand to other counties.
Yesterday I was looking for someplace new to visit. As noted above, I don’t think there are any more rail trails here in Lancaster, so I expanded my search into adjacent York County. There I came across the Heritage Rail Trail County Park: essentially a park that’s about 10 feet wide that stretches from the city of York to the Maryland border, about 21 miles. It continues into Maryland for another 20-some miles.
There are several interesting sites of historic nature along this trail. The first one to jump out at me was Howard Tunnel, so I planned my route to park nearest the tunnel.
I parked at the Brillhart Station parking area and headed south. I first came across another of those old railroad markers, this one for mile 52. After some time I reached mile 16, then Howard Tunnel, which is between miles 16 and 15. A display south of the tunnel indicates it is the oldest tunnel in continuous use in the country, but some Web sites claim it’s the oldest in the world. The display doesn’t mention it, but I think I saw somewhere on the Web that this trail is the only one in the country (?) that runs through an active railroad tunnel. I kept going south, passing the mile 15 marker, and finally decided to stop when I came to a bend in the trail. Right there was an old metal pole that had wires hanging out of it; it appears to have been used for signaling at some point but all that remains is a rusty pole. All along the trail are markers for an MCI fiber optic run, which I used as “submile” markers. The marker closest to this pole was 50-08.
When I finished, my pedometer indicated 3.2 miles, but it must have been more. The county map shows the mile 17 marker south of Daisy Mill Rd, which crosses the tracks and leads to the parking lot, but I did not see that marker. I do believe it is on just the other side of the intersection, and since I walked south of the mile 15 marker I must have gone at least four miles.
This was a nice walk. It’s away from any major roads, and only now and then will a car on a nearby country road be heard. There are sheltered picnic tables every so often (several a mile) so it would be a nice place to take a lunch along with some walking or biking. There are other historic remains, so I would certainly like to get back again, although it probably won’t happen until next spring unless we get some warm days this fall and winter.