Montour Trail-Letter

Volume 12, Issue 5

September/October, 2001

The annual Indian Summer Festival at Cecil Park will be held the final weekend of September. Festivities begin Friday evening, September 28 and will last until Sunday, September 30. Lots of arts and craft exhibits, and plenty of food will be available. Be sure to stop by the main refreshment stand next to the ball field: Cecil Friends' Frank Ludwin is planning to do some of the cooking. You won't be sorry. Also, just up the pathway towards the parking lot, you will find the Cecil Friends representing the Montour Trail as they proudly do year after year.

After several months of inactivity last fall and over the winter, the Cecil Friends have gotten their act back together and have been busy working on the Trail. A special thank you goes to Frank Ludwin who has been operating the equipment to remove trees, grading parking areas and drilling holes for signposts and fence posts. Also, thank you to Dan Jones for his diligent grass mowing. The old Ford tractor, which powers the mower, will only behave for him. He knows just the right words of kindness.

The Friends also have a new meeting place -- the caucus room of the new Cecil Township Municipal Building, which is adjacent to Cecil Park. Meetings are held on the fourth Wednesday of every month at 7:00 p.m..

Trail users can also look forward to bulletin boards at Kernicks and the Cecil Park entrance areas to let them know about trail events. Steve Dristas, son of Bo and Joan Dristas who are active Cecil Friends, will be constructing them as part of his Eagle Scout project. He also is planning a memorial garden in memory of Don Berty, deceased former president of Cecil Friends.

The Friends are gearing up to take on the start of a major project. The National Tunnel, which takes the Trail under Klinger Road experiences lots of water drips inside during rainy periods. The drips are signs of saturated soil on the outside of the concrete liner. The problem is to find a way to detour the water and stop the dripping. So far there has been only some spalling of the concrete but it is sure to get worse, if steps are not taken to correct it. The first plan of action is to attempt to clean out the drain holes that are about 12 feet above the floor of the tunnel. That could prove to be an interesting project.

Stay tuned.