Rail trails as a new form of leisure and travel

Rail trails are a special type of recreational space created on the basis of nonfunctioning, abandoned or destroyed railways. In fact, lost industrial heritage sites are the resource for the creating rail trails. At the same time, rail trails are not only recreational routes, but also a way to preserve the railway track, represent the endangered heritage, improve the quality of the territories around the abandoned railway lines. That is why rail trails are objects of scientific interest in foreign studies and occupy an important place in spatial planning and tourism. In Russia, there is no practice of creating rail trails yet, this issue is not regarded in scientific publications. Therefore, the purpose of the article is to study the concept of "rail trail" (greenway, linear park) as the basis for a special kind of travel, as well as features and advantages as a new format of recreation. The article solves the tasks, among them are: studying the understanding of rail trails in the western segment of scientific publications, classifying and describing the characteristics of rail trails as a special recreational space, consideration of the successful examples of rail trails functioning and cases of recreational railway space management in the global context, as well as describing the possibilities of using such experience in Russia.