Boardman Township officials and representatives of the MarkWest Energy and the Youngstown and Southeastern Railroad met last week to discuss the five miles of railway that stretches along Southern Blvd. in the township.
      The rail line, that stretches from Youngstown some 28 miles to Darlington, Pa., was recently purchased for $3.2 million by MarkWest from the Columbiana County Port Authority.
      Township officials, dating back more than four decades, have long complained the rail line is an eyesore, unkept and pocked with litter.
      “MarkWest told us they purchased the entire rail line in order to obtain a right of way for the installation of a pipe line in western Pennsylvania,” Trustee Thomas Costello said this week.
      Costello said MarkWest pledged to help and maintain the rail line better than its previous owner; and also said the line would continue to be operated by the Youngstown and Southeastern Railway.
      “We had good, honest conversation,” Costello said, noting that MarkWest officials indicated they didn’t want any problems with communities along the railway.
      “We talked about the lack of maintenance, and railway officials at the meeting indicated the previous owner (the Columbiana County Port Authority) would not let the Youngstown and Southeastern spend money on maintenance,” Costello said,
      Sarah Gartland, Boardman Township Zoning Inspector, said “we wanted to make clear our issues with the rail line. We expressed our concerns about junk along the line, lack of maintenance and box cars with graffiti.”
      The rail line had been purchased by Railroad Ventures some 15 years ago for about $800,000. The firm, headquartered in Boardman, wanted to abandoned the line and turn it into a hike and bike trail, a proposal that was supported by Boardman Township and Boardman Park.
      In costly litigation, Drake and the port authority argued before the STB that railway served upwards of nine businesses along the railway and was needed for commerce.
      David Handel, head of Railroad Ventures, claimed most of those businesses were located at the northern tip of Appalachia in Columbiana County, and they had indeed gone out of business.
      The port authority prevailed, and forced sale of the line for some $1.4 million.
      Up until the shale industry boom in Columbiana County, the Youngstown and Southeastern had served to transport construction debries, (trucked from New York state to the northern terminal of the line in Youngstown), then transported by rail to a dump site in Negley, Oh. That site is now reportedly closed.
      Principle transport seen along the line almost daily, are shiploads of pipe, used for drilling the wells in Columbiana County; and an underground pipeline, currently under construction.
      So decrepit is the railroad line, that cars are not permitted to move faster than 10-miles-per-hour along its stretch.
      Trustee Costello said MarkWest has asked the Youngstown and Southeastern Railway to seek funds for needed improvements on the tracks at the intersection of Maple Ave. and Southern Blvd.
      MarkWest Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE: MWE) is a publicly traded master limited partnership (MLP) formed in Jan., 2002, engaged in the gathering, processing, and transportation of natural gas; the transportation, fractionation, storage, and marketing of NGLs; and the gathering and transportation of crude oil.
      MarkWest says the majority of its growth since 2007 has focused on the development of natural gas supplies and the firm is the largest processor of natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, with fully integrated processing, fractionation, storage, and marketing operations, critical to the rich-gas development in the northeast United States.