Mar 5, 2014 3 min read

By Barbara S. Miller

Staff writer

bmiller@observer-reporter.com

Thirteen years ago, CSX Transportation paid Washington County more than a half million dollars to take parts of its railroad right of way off its hands because freight trains had long ceased to run between Washington and Wheeling, W.Va.

County taxpayers now stand to reap benefits from this land deal because Chesapeake Energy offered a $6,500 per acre signing bonus for gas and oil drilling rights beneath this strip of 10.68 acres of county-owned land, plus an 18 percent royalty once natural gas is extracted.

The lease the Washington County commissioners will formally consider at their meeting at 10 a.m. today includes no surface drilling rights.

Scott Fergus, Washington County director of administration, said Chesapeake is preparing to drill in areas where it has surface rights, and purchasing rights from the county is part of the firm’s “tying up loose ends.”

Many still call the railroad right of way the Baltimore & Ohio tracks, a name that would be familiar to anyone who plays the Monopoly game.

This line was the first common carrier railroad and the first to offer scheduled freight and passenger service to the public in 1830.

A connection to Wheeling, then a city in Virginia, was completed in 1853. B&O became part of CSX, named for the Chesapeake, or “Chessie System,” in 1987.

Lisa Cessna, Washington County Planning Commission director, said after the commissioners’ agenda meeting Wednesday that CSX donated the land to the county because of the maintenance involved with two railroad tunnels, including one under heavily traveled Route 40 and another longer tunnel lies beneath the village of West Alexander. A third one is east of Claysville.

“When they were trying to divest, there needed to be a public entity responsible for the tunnels,” Cessna said. “They paid us to take it.”

CSX offered the county $550,000 in exchange for taking over the responsibility for tunnels, a bridge and part of the rail line. The county repaired the tunnels to stabilize them.

Cessna said she did not know when the last train ran through the Claysville area, but the Internet indicates it was in the early 1980s.

In 2001, the county parks department formed a study committee to determine the feasibility of walking and/or biking trail in Claysville. The county, however, is not the sole owner of the railroad right of way.

Individuals and other entities, including Columbia Gas Co., purchased parts.

Although a hiking or biking path has never been formally dedicated, a 2.3-mile section from Timberlake Road near Sunset Beach to Claysville has been mowed and pedestrians and bicyclists use it.

“It’s an incredibly beautiful walk in our section,” said Craig Sweger, vice chairman of the National Pike Trail Council.

“Hopefully, we’re getting closer to opening it.”

In another matter related to gas wells in the Marcellus Shale, the commissioners expect to also enter into unitization agreements that will allow horizontal boring that originates with Avella Land Ventures LLC to take place under Cross Creek County Park.