This letter is in response to Cheers and Jeers (The World, Oct. 4), regarding how “CORP want to rip out the tracks and sell the land to a trust as a trail route.” This follows a prior article wherein The World indicated that CORP’s CEO spoke with the Trust for Public Land about a possible Rails to Trails project.

The Trust for Public Land is an organization that acts as a facilitator for many types of public land use projects including assisting the public to acquire lands for public use, like a Rails to Trails project. In the very same article, The World quoted a TPL representative as stating that “the trust favors continued railroad service on the line, but if it is abandoned, it would consider purchasing the right of way to keep the property in one piece. The trust has no interest in the Surface Transportation Board. We don’t have a dog in this race at all.”

The CORP CEO had an idea, he ran it past TPL and they are not involved.

n Yes, CORP is the bad guy.

n Yes, CORP seems to be yanking our collective chain.

n Yes, Coos Bay/North Bend economic woes are of no concern to CORP.

n No, the Trust for Public Land is not the bad guy.

n No, TPL does not have an interest in sweeping into Coos Bay to purchase the CORP line and turn it into a hiking trail. That’s not what they do, or how they work.

n Yes, it is preferable that we keep the line as a working conduit for commerce in the Coos Bay area.

n Yes, the rail line would make a spectacular trail under the Rails to Trails program, but only if attempts to acquire the line from CORP, for the purpose of commerce, are unsuccessful.

n Yes, if acquisition fails, I am a proponent of the Rails to Trails program.

n No, I’m not a bad guy either.

n Yes, if this happens it will be at glacial speed.

n No, there is no one coming in from the outside to land grab your rail line and tell you what to do with it.

More information about the Rails to Trails program can be found at http://www.railstotrails.org. Information about the Trust for Public Land can be found at http://www.tpl.org.

Elizabeth Spona

North Bend