Completing Moonville Rail Trail Bridges Would Create Continuous Vinton County Corridor

Moonville Rail-Trail organizers say donated flatbed rail cars from the U.S. Department of Energy and state grants are closing the gaps that for decades have blocked a continuous trail through Vinton County. The DOE donated four vintage flatbed cars from the Piketon site, a gift the agency estimated would save $233,000 in transportation and disposal costs, and Moonville Rail-Trail leaders are using grant money to install the cars as low-cost spans across stream crossings.

The need for bridges dates to the railroad’s dismantling in the 1980s, when tracks and trestle bridges were removed. The Vinton-Jackson Courier reported that 11 bridges were taken from a 9.5-mile section, creating 11 gaps that have forced hikers, bicyclists and horseback riders into wet crossings or road detours. The Moonville corridor runs through Zaleski State Forest and near Lake Hope and includes the masonry Moonville Tunnel in Vinton County and the timber King Switch or King’s Hollow Tunnel near Mineral in Athens County.

Local leaders described the rail-car approach as pragmatic. Herschel Prater, vice president of Moonville Rail-Trail Association, said, “We were looking at all angles to put bridges in. … The idea of using rail cars came up at one of the association’s meetings.” DOE deputy manager Dave Kozlowski added, “We are pleased we could provide these vintage rail cars to a community organization that will be able to use them for such an aesthetic and functional public purpose for years to come.”

The Vinton-Jackson Courier reported one 50-foot car was placed on Aug. 21, and association leadership said a donated car can be installed for less than $20,000 using grant funds, a fraction of the cost of buying and installing manufactured bridges. Neil Shaw, identified in that reporting as association president and namesake of the 2016 Neil Shaw Memorial Bridge, was quoted saying, “one of them is going to fit perfectly” for at least one gap.

State funding rounds are tackling the engineered bridge work that the rail cars alone cannot resolve. The AthensMessenger reported more than $1.5 million in grants from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Department of Transportation, and said ODNR’s Abandoned Mine Lands funding will pay to install seven bridges and remediate eight open mine portals. ODOT’s Transportation Alternatives program is funding an additional bridge and the Transportation Ohio project page lists Project ID 120373 - a Moonville Trail Part 2/3 project to build two pedestrian bridges on existing railroad abutments over Raccoon Creek 3.75 miles northeast of Zaleski, with an estimated construction cost of $2,000,000 and a public comment period; the project page shows begin construction Autumn 2025 and end Autumn 2026.

Trail users are already seeing benefits where work is finished. Field accounts reported stone-dust surfacing and new crossings that open access to King’s Hollow Tunnel and longer forested stretches; riders still detour roughly 1 mile on Hope-Moonville Road where two spans remain unfinished. AthensBicycleClub reporting observed that the combination of new bridges and surfacing has turned the route into a stronger recreation draw for Vinton County.

Several details remain to be reconciled by project partners: leadership is variously reported as Neil Shaw and Brian Blair in different stories, bridge counts vary by source (11 removed versus seven to be funded versus the two in ODOT’s plan), and schedules differ between an AthensMessenger note that construction was expected “sometime in 2020” and ODOT’s Autumn 2025–2026 timeline. Moonville Rail-Trail, Inc., formed in 2002, and county and state agencies still have public comment, engineering and remediation steps to complete before the corridor is fully continuous and linked to longer regional routes such as the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway.