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The FNRT will be replacing old side rails on the high bridge(one mile east of Potato Road) over the Indian River in Canaan this spring. The main part of the bridge was replaced a couple of years ago by FNRT.  We will be applying for a local grant to totally complete the bridge.   Most of the trail work is funded by grants from the State of NH with matching money coming from membership dues . Please consider joining FNRT  to make this the best trail in NH. Did you know we were picked as being in the top 100 best trails in the country?

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I-89 Bridge Work

Starting Wednesday April 17 the existing bridge is scheduled for removal. During the removal process there will be falling debris underneath the bridge and for safety reasons the trail will be closed during the actual work periods ( 7:00 am – 4:30 pm) Monday through Saturday for about a week. Unlike last year’s northbound bridge patching. This year’s type of work will not allow for detouring people around the hazard. Flaggers will be underneath to enforce the closure.

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Northern: 6-12” of new snow on a varied base. Trails are not groomed and riding is fair. Gates are closed. Spring conditions.

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Daniel Webster, the famed orator and New Hampshire native, was a featured speaker at the 1847 ribbon cutting for Boston and Maine Railroad’s Northern Line. At the ceremony in Lebanon, before a crowd of more than a thousand, he said of the railroad, “It is the spirit and influence of free labor, it is the indomitable industry of a free people, that has done all this.”

The same could be said of today’s Northern Rail Trail, which begins just steps away from where Webster gave that keynote address and follows the same path as the railway once did. It was built by the hard and loving labor of hundreds of volunteers and is now the longest rail-trail in the state, spanning 52 miles.

“This is one of the best examples in this region of a trail that’s being developed at the grassroots level,” says Carl Knoch, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s (RTC) manager of trail development in the Northeast.

Although the corridor was purchased by the state when the railroad abandoned the line in 1996, the trail’s development has been fervently pursued at the local level. “It probably has the greatest number of groups involved in trying to develop it as a trail,” says Chris Gamache, Chief Supervisor for the New Hampshire Bureau of Trails, which oversees the trail. “There are lots of groups working together to the same end goal.” It was for this reason that the Northern Rail Trail was featured in RTC’s 2012Community Built report, highlighting exceptional local efforts across America of citizens and volunteers using community strength to build and maintain public pathways.

Shortly after the trail was turned over to the state, snowmobile groups saw the potential of the corridor for recreational use and began to work on it. “The snowmobile clubs were the original maintainers of the trail,” Gamache says. Volunteers from the Andover Snowmobile Club, Lakes Region Snowmobile Club, Town Line Trail Dusters and others removed railroad ties, redecked bridges (the trail has more than a dozen), trimmed trees and completed other tasks to make the trail safe and operational.

To address the needs of the trail during the warmer months, two nonprofit groups were formed, one in each of the two counties that the trail traversed.

“Our work was relatively low cost because much of the trail did not have heavy ballast on it,” says Dick Mackay, chair of the Friends of the Northern Rail Trail in Grafton County that manages the trail’s northern end. “We didn’t have all this broken stone. We had cinder, a black, grainy material that’s soft and resilient. It’s actually one of the best possible surfaces. When the ties were pulled out, we had a trail!”

Volunteers at the southern half of the trail did not have it so easy. “The railroad construction in the two counties was dramatically different,” says Alex Bernhard, vice president of Friends of the Northern Rail Trail in Merrimack County. “The railroad upgraded the southern half by laying heavy stone ballast. It has great drainage and is stable for the ties. But when you take up the ties it’s impossible to walk on or ride a bike on for any length of time and you can’t ride a horse on it either.”

The Merrimack County group has spent much of its budget (largely provided by Transportation Enhancements and Recreational Trails Program grants) purchasing, trucking and laying down a custom-designed stone dust over the rocky ballast. Without this special mixture, the trail would only be useable in the winter when heavy snowfalls cover the uneven surface. Another project has been the careful restoration of the granite mileposts lining this section of trail, lingering relics of the corridor’s past. Used by train engineers, the numbers on the posts indicate the distance from either B (Boston) or WRJ (White River Junction).

When track construction was attempted through Enfield, the railroad had an unexpected fight on its hands. Although the conservative Shaker community in town did not want the gleaming modern trains within sight of their quiet enclave (a place so beautiful they called it the “Chosen Vale”), they recognized the value of a readily accessible means of exporting their wares. So a deal was struck: in return for an investment in the railroad venture, the tracks were moved away from the Shaker village to the other side of Mascoma Lake. One of the railroad’s locomotives was even dubbed “The Shaker.” Less than a mile from the trail, the Enfield Shaker Museum offers an intriguing place to learn about the Shakers that settled here in 1793 and practiced equality, celibacy, pacifism and communal property ownership.

Further south, in Andover, history buffs will not want to miss a stop at Potter Place, a Victorian rail station maintained by the Andover Historical Society. Inside, the feeling of a busy train depot in the early to mid-1900s is carefully preserved. An adjacent caboose can be explored. Across from the station lies the homestead and gravesite of Richard Potter, a magician and ventriloquist who broke new ground as an African-American performer throughout the country in the early 19th century. Another notable stop is Franklin, where you can visit Daniel Webster’s birthplace, as well as nearby Webster Lake, where he spent many summers.

For those interested in nature, the trail does not disappoint. New Hampshire had been vying to be the most-forested state in the lower 48, and recently nabbed the title over Maine, its longtime rival. Nearly 89 percent of the Granite State is forested, including the area through which the trail runs. If you’re looking to see moose south of Alaska, Tewksbury Pond and the surrounding marshlands between Canaan and Grafton is a place they frequent. The occasional bear can be found here, too, as well as eagles, herons, and a flock of wild turkeys in Canaan.

With its increasing year-round popularity, there are movements afoot to expand the trail from both ends. In the north, fundraising is underway to begin construction on the Mascoma River Greenway that would seamlessly extend the Northern Rail Trail four miles closer to the Connecticut River along the state’s border with Vermont.

A hoped-for trail terminus is White River Junction, Vt., where the Northern Railroad originally ended. From the rail-trail’s southern end, plans are to extend the trail from Boscawen to Concord by summer 2015. This would provide easy access to and from the state capital and I-93, a major thoroughfare.

“The comment we always get about the trail is, ‘This was here and we didn’t even know it!” says Mackay. “They’re stunned that there could be such a wonderful place to walk or bike so close to home.”

Related Links

Rails-to-Trails Conservancy

Friends of the Northern Rail Trail in Grafton County

Friends of the Northern Rail Trail in Merrimack County

New Hampshire Rail Trails Coalition

New Hampshire Snowmobile Association

Trail Facts

Name: Northern Rail Trail

Used railroad corridor: Boston & Maine’s Northern Line

Trail website: New Hampshire Parks and Recreation

Length: 52 miles

Counties: Grafton and Merrimack

Start Point/End Point: Spencer Street in Lebanon to the State Forest Nursery in Boscawen

Surface type: The northern end of the trail, from Lebanon to Enfield, is cinder. The surface for the remainder of the trail is primarily compacted stone dust.

Uses: In the warmer months, the trail is used for bicycling (mountain bikes or hybrids recommended), walking and horseback riding.

In winter, the trail is popular for cross-country skiing and snowmobiling; the snowmobile season generally runs from mid-December through late March.

Difficulty: Easy with a mountain bike or hybrid; the trail is not recommended for road bikes.

Grade: 1 percent grade. The high point of the trail, at 968 feet, is Orange Cut between Canaan and Grafton.

Getting There: The northern terminus of the rail-trail is Lebanon, which offers amunicipal airport. To travel by train, the closest Amtrak station, White River Junction (102 Railroad Row), is available just over the border in Vermont, five miles from trail’s end.

The southern terminus at the state forest nursery on Route 3 in Boscawen is 14 miles north of Concord, N.H., which can be reached by Concord Bus Lines from Boston or Exit 17 from I-93.

Access and Parking: With such a long trail, numerous parking locations and access points are available. Both of the trail groups in Grafton County andMerrimack County provide detailed maps with these waypoints marked.

To navigate the area with an interactive GIS map, and to see more photos, user reviews and ratings, plus loads of other trip-planning information, visit RTC’s free trail-finder website, TrailLink.com.

Rentals: Bicycle rentals are available near both ends of the trail:

• Omer and Bob’s Sportshop (20 Hanover Street, Lebanon; 603.448.3522)
• Goodale’s Bike Shop (19 Triangle Park Drive, Concord; 603.225.5111)

• Do you enjoy and want to support our Trail of the Month feature? Any extra contribution you’re able to make helps us stay at the forefront of covering trails and trail projects around the country. Thank you for reading and supporting this feature!

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The current phase of the project, which should be completed in 2014, includes development and completion of the path through the downtown tunnel near Lebanon College, as well as the construction of the path over the four bridges between the intersection of Mascoma Street and Mechanic Street in Lebanon and Glen Road in West Lebanon.
“When Phase 1 is completed, we will have a functional trail with a dirt path that is navigable from the center of town to Glen Road by walkers, hikers, runners, mountain bikers, cross-country skiers and snowshoers,” said Paul Coats, director of the Lebanon Recreation & Parks Department
If you are interested in either making a monetary donation, or if you or your business is interested in creating a volunteer work crew for the project, contact Coats at 603-448-5121 or paul.coats@lebcity.com; or the Coalition’s Citizen Chairman, Frank Gould, at 603-448-1660.

For more information on the project, including ways to get involved and other ways to support the MRG, visit http://mascomagreenway.wordpress.com, or on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MascomaRiverGreenway.

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A large winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow throughout most of New Hampshire this past weekend. Riding throughout the state is good to great. With varied snow totals, please stay on trail as deep snow may be covering potential hazards off trail. Please use caution on lakes and ponds.A big thank you to Yeti and Snow Miser for bringing big snow back to New Hampshire. Great job guys!

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Though the warm temperatures and rain yesterday took away a fair amount of snow, the ground is still frozen and riding still exists in northern NH and higher elevations.  Snow chances are predicted all weekend and with the frozen base, trails will be back in shape with a small amount of snow.  February is a typically snowy month and winter is less than ½ over so more riding will occur.

Rail Lines:

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Chevrons were designed for highway uses on engineered corners.  Trails are not engineered.  Riders need to operate at speeds prudent to handle upcoming corners and trail changes.  Directional Arrows will continue to be used to warn riders of significant changes in trail direction.

Large arrow used before changes in direction. Any yellow diamond shaped sign is a “cautionary” sign that is warning riders to slow down.

Curves: Most trails in NH have multiple direction changes and are winding.  This sign is not being ordered or installed on trails from this point on.

Check out a YouTube Video from New Years Day riding in West Ossipee. Trails were in good shape and it was a nice ride: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUb6m_NR0nE&feature=youtu.be

Rail Lines:

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December 28, 2012 Update

It’s looking like a great new year for riding. The Trails Bureau wishes everyone a happy, safe New Year and a snowy 2013!

Strong winds may have caused downed trees and drifting snow.  Grooming operations are ongoing around the state. Please ride with caution.

The first major storm of the season brought various amounts of snow to the state. Many clubs may not have gates open until this weekend. Please give volunteers time. Ride safe!
Many bodies of water are still not yet frozen. Stay off lakes and ponds.

Pittsburg- 12”+ of new snow. Trails are 100% open. Riding is good to very good. Grooming is ongoing. Stay off lakes and ponds.

Colebrook- 8”+ new snow. All trails are open. Riding is good to very good. Grooming is ongoing.

Stratford- 6” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair. Please use caution, open water bars.

Groveton/Nash Stream- 6-8” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair to good.

Diamond Pond/Coleman State Park- 12-14” of new snow on a 4-8” base. Grooming is ongoing. Riding is good to very good. Stay off logging roads unless they are signed as open.

Errol- 8-10” of new snow. Grooming is ongoing. Riding is good. Stay off logging roads unless they are signed open.

Cambridge/Milan- 8” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair.

Berlin- 8-10” of new snow on a 4-6” base. Grooming is ongoing. Riding is good.

Berlin/Success- 8” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair.

Gorham- 10-12” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Conditions are fair. Corridor 12 from Gorham to Berlin is temporarily closed.

Franconia Notch- 8” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair.

Jefferson- 6” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair. Please use caution. Watch for water bars.

Lancaster- 6” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair. Corridor 5 and 5A from Lancaster to Groveton is closed.

Twin Mountain- 8” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Riding is fair.

Bear Notch- 10+” of new snow on an 8-10” base. Trails are 80% open. Trails are groomed and riding is good. Railroad Tracks are closed from Bartlett Village to Sawyer River Road until January 6, 2013. No snowmobiles allowed south of Bear Notch Road. Bear Notch Road, Experimental Forest, and Meadow Brook out to Swans Junction groomed. Beyond there, expect open water bars and ungroomed trails to North Fork. No loop until railroad tracks are open.

Conway/ Chatham- 8-10” of new snow on a 3-4” base. Trails are 75% open. Trails are not groomed, and riding is marginal. Railroad tracks (Corridor 19) are closed until January 2, 2013 from West Main Street North. Logging in East Conway east of railroad tracks and behind Town and Country on Corridor 19. Use caution. Yield to trucks.

Ossipee- 8” of new snow on a 2-3” base. Trails are 75% open. Trails are not groomed and riding is marginal.

Wakefield- 8” of new snow. Trails are open and groomers are out packing. Railroad tracks are not groomed. Please use caution.

Moultonboro– 6-8” of new snow. Groomers are out packing. Trails are 75% open and riding is marginal.

New Durham – 10” of new snow on no base. Trails 50% open. 20% of trails groomed. Riding is poor. Watch for open water and exposed rocks.

Bear Brook State Park- 8+” of new snow. Trails are not groomed and riding is marginal.

Pisgah State Park- 8-10” of snow on a 1-2” base. Trails 100% open. Trails are not groomed and riding is moderate.

Pillsbury State Park- 8-10” of new snow on a 2-4” base. Trails are 100% open. Groomers are packing and riding is moderate. Gates will be opened early this morning.

Sullivan- 1-3” new snow. Groomers are packing. Riding is moderate.

Sugar River- 8”+ of new snow. Groomers are packing. Riding is marginal.

Hopkinton/Everett Riding Area- 6”+ of new snow. Trails are not groomed and riding is marginal. Watch for logging operations.

Westmoreland – 8-10” new snow. Trails are 100% open. Trails are not groomed and riding is moderate. Please stay on trail.

Keene- 10+” of new snow. Trails are not groomed and riding is moderate.

Rail Lines:

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The Rails to Trails Conservancy in Washington, D.C. has added the 52-mile Northern Rail Trail in Grafton and Merrimack Counties to its list of “100 Top Trails in the U.S.”  This rail trail is one of the longest in New England and is the longest in New Hampshire.  The Trail crosses the State of New Hampshire from Lebanon in the Connecticut River Valley to Boscawen, on the Merrimack just north of Concord.  Its ultimate length will be 59 miles.  The Trail, which spans two counties, has been worked on heavily the past 15 years by two volunteer groups and over half million dollars of public and private funds have been spent on its improvement.  A westward extension of the trail toward Vermont from downtown Lebanon as part of the Mascoma River Greenway is in development.

The Rail Trail has been a major snowmobile thoroughfare since the mid 1990’s.  In non-snow seasons its unpaved surface (stone dust and cinders) is exceptional for walking and hybrid biking as well as all other permitted uses.  Flat (at most 1% change in grade), the Trail is almost entirely removed from vehicular traffic. The views across meadows, lakes and rivers to low mountains are striking and memorable as it meanders through farmlands, pristine lakes and rural towns.  Trail bridges cross rushing rivers and 1.5 miles of unspoiled frontage on Lake Mascoma completely away from roads lead to Mascoma River along historic mill sites into Lebanon.  Other attractions include the Potter Place Depot, Highland Lake, the covered bridge at Bridge Road in Andover and the restored Enfield Depot. Moose can often be seen along the streams and marshes in Grafton and Orange. In Canaan views of Cardigan Mountain reflected in Mirror Lake invite both a rest stop and photo op.

President of the Friends of the Northern Rail Trail in Grafton County, Dick Mackay, said, “We are delighted that the Northern has been added to the list of top rail trails in the country.  I guess the beauty of the Northern’s surroundings, its length, and the way it connects one part of New Hampshire to another made it a fine candidate.  This is a boost for Grafton and Merrimack County volunteers who work hard to create and maintain the Rail Trail.”

At the east end of the trail The Highland Lake Inn serves as a welcome center for the Rail Trail.  Use of toilet facilities, parking, and trail information are free services provided by the center.  The West end of the trail is downtown Lebanon, where one can get free bus service (with bike racks) to nearby Hanover NH and Norwich VT.
Additional Information:

Grafton County:  http://www.northernrailtrail.org

See also advancetransit.com 

Merrimack County:  http://www.fnrt.org

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1 Taylor St
Lebanon, NH 03748

603.448.6477

Agenda:  After 16 years, are we done? – a report. If so, should FNRT direct its future
efforts and funding resources to assisting the City in implementing the Mascoma
River Greenway / Northern R.T.  extension?  2013 Maintenance projects – what
improvements would you like to see?

For more info/comment:   mail@northernrailtrail.org

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