A Norfolk Southern Corp. train goes over the Roanoke River on Friday in Elliston. Two teenagers were killed by a NS train Sunday while they walked along the tracks.

ERIC BRADY The Roanoke Times

Signs posted on each end of the bridge warn people to stay off the railroad trestle in Elliston because of the danger involved.

After attending the funerals for their friends and classmates, Cameron Smith, 15 (from left), Dallas Pickering, 16, Patrick Barnes, 16, and Matt Epperly, 17, went to the scene of the tragedy to view the bridge in Elliston where Grayson Hoops and Steven Robertson lost their lives.

CHRIS WINSTON The Roanoke Times

Signs mark the edge of a 650-acre state natural preserve near Elliston. No formal entryway to the Pedlar Hills Natural Area Preserve exists. Visitors entering the park from the south must cross Norfolk Southern tracks (seen at right), which the railroad prohibits.

Steven Robertson (left), 16, and Grayson Hoops, 17, were killed Sunday as they walked on a railroad trestle in Elliston.

Related

Previous coverage

• Elliston train victims lived, died together
• Rail tracks in Elliston are dangerous, yet common path
• 2 teenagers killed by train in Elliston

Correction (Feb. 21, 2011; 3:45 p.m.): This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.

ELLISTON -- A vision for a walkable, ridable streetscape is on the books for rural eastern Montgomery County, but implementation didn't come in Grayson Hoops' and Steven Robertson's lifetimes.

As the boys used a train trestle to cross a branch of the Roanoke River, they stood above the very spot where a community-minded planning team mapped a footbridge in 2007.

But nobody has ever identified the money to pay for it or the host of other trails and pathways proposed to expand nonmotorized transportation in a community whose small size is ideal for foot or bicycle travel.

The youngsters were struck and killed by a freight train Sunday. Ruled accidental, their deaths are likely to be added to the toll of trespasser fatalities kept by the Federal Railroad Administration. They were not authorized to be on railroad property.

Malvin "Pug" Wells, the volunteer fire chief in Elliston, backed the 2007 vision for pedestrian amenities in Elliston and neighboring Lafayette and Shawsville. He said he hasn't heard much about the plan lately.

"It certainly would be the time to talk about it now. It's terrible you have to have an incident like this to draw the need to the public and to our leaders," Wells said.

Montgomery County wrote its Village Transportation Links plan in 2007, spending $67,636 (covered by the Virginia Department of Transportation) to map bicycle and pedestrian routes and greenways for travel within a handful of small communities and to and from Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Radford.

A consultant priced 25 projects in Elliston and Lafayette, including short conduits costing a few tens of thousands of dollars and ambitious improvements such as a paved shoulder for bikes and sidewalk for people on U.S. 460 between Elliston and Eastern Montgomery High School for $516,880.

As for the outcome visionaries wanted, residents biking and strolling about would connect more with one another and with nature, staying a safe distance from water, trains and track, and U.S. 460.

In addition to two forks of the Roanoke River snaking by, there is an enormous state-owned nature preserve four times the size of all the county parks combined.

"The thinking ... was to provide a safe route to get kids from both ends of the valley to the schools and to other areas of activity safely by keeping them off the tracks and off the highway," said former county planner Meghan Dorsett, who worked on the effort.

Officials hoped to leverage the opportunity presented by plans for a Norfolk Southern Corp. intermodal rail yard in the area and persuade the state and railroad to cover trails in adjacent communities.

A county lawsuit designed to block the intermodal yard's construction outside Elliston is before the Virginia Supreme Court. No funding support has been forthcoming so far, and the plan has not come to fruition.

Today in Elliston, pedestrians still travel by road and some take the tracks that the railroad places strictly off-limits. Some residents report close calls with trains, and three other accidental deaths have been reported in or near Elliston since 1990 -- two of them were youths.

Hoops, 17, and Robertson, 16, left Hoops' home late Sunday morning to hike, according to Hoops' stepfather. Their whereabouts before they stepped onto the trestle are unknown to parents and authorities.

The 82-year-old trestle, which spans 156 feet, bridges a stream feeding the Roanoke River. The west bank is private property. Stepping off the trestle on the east bank, however, a hiker can go in two directions -- onto private property or into a 650-acre nature preserve owned by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation.

The county transportation linkages plan calls for an eight- to 10-foot-wide trail leading north from Elliston beneath the train trestle and into Pedlar Hills Natural Area Preserve.

It would begin about where the river footbridge would be located. That way, nobody would need to go on the train tracks.

The plan outlined a vision for a second entrance three-fourths of a mile to the southwest reached via Blount Drive, a public road with some improvements for crossing the tracks.

Assembled by a series of purchases beginning in 1999, Pedlar Hills is unimproved except for square white signs saying "NATURAL AREA PRESERVE."

The chief reason the state bought it was the preservation of rare, threatened and endangered species. Exceptional plants such as the smooth coneflower grow at Pedlar Hills.

However, by 2002, Department of Conservation and Recreation officials said they intended to build a parking lot and trail using money from a voter-approved bond.

"One reason we liked the idea of selling it was because people could enjoy it," said Martha Orrick, whose family used to own a portion of the land.

"There are just a lot of people who really want to see that opened up."

Visitor accommodations such as parking lots, trails and directional signs exist at 21 of 60 natural areas across the state. But the state lacks the resources to do the same at Pedlar Hills, officials said.

Plus, "we don't have a good access point to that property for the purpose of providing public access because of the tracks and lack of right of way over the tracks," said Claiborne Woodall, the Abingdon-based western district manager for the DCR's Division of Natural Heritage.

Even DCR personnel sometimes cross the tracks to enter the property, they admit.

Railroad spokesman Robin Chapman said trespassing at Elliston is comparable to other points of the 22,000-mile train system.

"Our police officers have stopped and warned people to stay off the tracks, and there have been incidents of vandalized railroad property as well as people throwing rocks at passing trains," he said.

Advocates are not giving up on the vision for eased mobility in Elliston.

County officials cited the conditions under which trails could go in.

The plan is "our future guide for trails within the villages if and when we have developers willing to develop, grants or county dollars," county Planning Director Steve Sandy said by e-mail.

A newly hired Department of Conservation and Recreation steward, Wes Paulos, was by coincidence at Pedlar Hills on Friday "getting oriented and looking at signage and access points," Woodall said.

To develop the state property for public visitation would be "an awesome thing," said Mitchell Haugh, the county's director of parks and recreation.

"But it takes money."