Hello members and friends of the Montour Trail!

The Montour Trail Council was very pleased with the announcement that the Montour Trail has been designated a National Recreation Trail. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton officially declared the designation on June 6th to coincide with National Trails Day. Her department's announcement noted that the Montour Trail takes users through a variety of settings-from urban and suburban areas to picturesque undeveloped landscapes-and that its smooth limestone surface makes the trail ideal for non-motorized uses.

We are very proud of this designation and are planning on incorporating the National Recreational Trail logo into our new updated trail map. This new map will feature the spectacular (*)McDonald Trestle on the front cover. The map should be available by the end of July.

In other news we moved all of our MTC & Airport Corridor Friends maintenance equipment out of a Moon Township owned garage facility. A company involved with fire engine equipment repair will now occupy the site. We are very thankful to Moon Township for allowing use of the garage at no cost the last few years. Also thanks are in order to our deceased friend Dick Quasey and our garage supervisor Jerry Bates. They spent many hours maintaining the equipment and keeping the garage in good shape over the years. We have found some temporary facilities for our equipment until the new MTC garage in Cecil Township is complete.

*Note: Our talented engineer Dave Wright always corrects me by noting that the McDonald structure is actually a viaduct. However, it seems the local residents, trail users and certain newspaper reporters prefer the trestle name. I am sure marketing folks also preferred the September, 2003 Trestle-Fest label versus a structurally correct Viaduct-Fest label. Anyway, enjoy it no matter what you prefer to label it.

Happy Trails.

Dennis Pfeiffer, President