New Hampshire Central Railroad (NHCR) Discussion

bigfreight wrote:7324 came thru Lancaster headed north with 1 empty from Presby at 500PM . Missed the southbound run. It must of happened late Friday afternoon or early Saturday morning when I was gone. There some kind of a public hearing coming up in Whitefield about the tracks south of town going towards Littleton. The snowmobile and ATV club want to make the line a rail-trail and have said the NHCR has not lived up to the contract to maintain the line and that the line is better suited for a rail-trail than storage of railcars.

When I lived in Littleton, I would walk the old right of way toward Bethlehem and the tracks and switches were in a very deteriorated condition by 2007. The entire line would need clearing and track rehab to keep a train on the rails. The last lumber loads by rail to the end of the line stopped at the end of 1997. The ties were so bad you could pull the spikes from the tie plates with only your fingers.

As far as industry? The only potential service would be to the 3 fuel dealers still operating and located along the line, none have sidings. Those would be Stiles, Amerigas and Harris. Irving has a very active fuel terminal on Meadow street and tanker trailers are in and out of there everyday. Maybe the state of NH would reconsider receiving rail shipments again for aggregates and winter anti-skid materials. Several times a year when I lived near the Dells Road DOT site you would see tractor trailers from the seacoast lined up along the road, waiting to unload salt and sand used to keep the North country open for the winter. I'm sure the same fleet of trucks would be dispatched to other NH-DOT north country sites day after day.

7324 came south today around 1100AM with 6 boxcars with the IATR logo on them. The Coos Democrat had an article today about Whitefield and abandoning the line to Bethlehem town line. The selectman had a hearing and are going to move forward with approaching the state about taking up the track.

Where is the Littleton/ Bethlehem town line? Is it beyond Wing Road toward Whitefield? The only potential customer would be the wood chip power plant just before Wing Road. A spur would have to be constructed across the state highway and a lot of infrastructure would have to be built. The Whitefield Power Plant weigh station at the wood yard gate is within site of the end of track on the Quebec Jct wye. It could also take shipments by rail. Not much talk about moving wood by rail until all the local roads are closed to trucks during the mud season. I'm not sure if the two plants are still operating.

Bob Meckley

Busy day on the NHCR. 7324 came north deadheading at 800am thru Lancaster this morning and returned south at around 1200 with 1 covered hopper for Presby and three double door boxcars with IATR marks on them. Came back north again at around 500PM with 2 empty covered hoppers from Presby.

Went up to Groveton yesterday for breakfast and noticed that 7324 was back with covered hopper for Presby. Also 6 more boxcars with IATR reporting marks and 3 covered hoppers were sitting on the mill sidings. Most of the mill is now gone it looks so different now that they are taking down the buildings. They have left the concrete slabs for future use. It looks like 7324 will coming south at some point this week to Hazen.

7324 just came thru Page Hill Rd in Lancaster headed south with 1 covered hopper for Presby

7324 came northbound deadheading to Groveton around 400PM on Thursday afternoon.

NHCR7324 came south thru Lancaster with one covered hopper for Presby around 930am this morning and came back north at around 200PM with 2 empty covered hoppers

Winter railroading came to town today. First time they have run in 2 months. We have no snow on the ground at all. NHCR 7324 came south thru Lancaster NH this morning with 2 covered hoppers for Presby. They had 2 crew members out on the catwalks watching the tracks for Ice I would assume and later came back north headed to Groveton with one empty.

^Great news! Thanks.

No snow?

I live south of Buffalo. This is the 3rd time all of our snow has melted.

What's the lowest temp you have had? We had -11 one morning.

-25 below around New Years. We were out of town but the housesitter said it got that cold.

Bigfreight,
Thanks for the update. Is this the first time that NHCR has run down to Presby in winter? Usually it seemed that they shut down operations to there during this time of the year.

Any additional happening in the North Country?

It is has been 5 years since they ran in the winter. There was some conflict with the snowmobilers a few years ago so I think he shut down from Dec 1st thru May. The groomer has not been up the tracks to Groveton the last three winters. Him running saves Presby a lot of money on running the truck up to N Stratford during the winter to unload pellets.

Anyone see these Northern Pass Videos featuring the New Hampshire Central in them? Both show the inside of the shop, whats interesting is it looks like they have a GMTX painted GP38 again (perhaps the one they originally had that went to Guilford?) Here are the links anyways, can anyone confirm if they still have the GP38?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEKgOSwVWps" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Slnjabjl8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Cory

They've been showing those videos on Maine TV stations too. I had noticed the yellow geep but hadn't noticed the blue GMTX. Thanks for pointing it out.