Bartlette

any maps, pictures, info on the why at bartlette and where it led to?

If by the "why at Bartlette" you mean the wye at Bartlett, New Hampshire, :
It was originally a connection to the Bartlett & Albany Railroad, a logging railroad that today is under part of Bear Notch Road. More recently, it was used to turn the Mallet locomotives of the Maine Central that were kept at Bartlett mainly as helpers up the grade to Crawford's. If you can locate a copy of the book Maine Central RR - Mountain Division, by the 470 Railroad Club, it will probably answer all your questions.

PBM

Not just the Mallets, they were not around very long. There was no turntable at Bartlett, so they used the wye. Its still in place, I had the chance to "run" on it in a motorocar about 10 years ago just to say we had done it! the Mountain Division book is a treasure if you have any interest in this line. Around $70-100 on ebay.

There was also a video put out a number of years ago by Herron (sp?) titled the "maine Central Mountain Division" which among many interesting topics, shows engines wye-ing at Bartlett and the pusher operation there. The time period is the late 1940's / early 1950's. Don't know if it is still in print.

I just checked and it is stil available, in DVD as well as VHS. Check this link (scroill down to bottom of page):

http://www.rrhistorical.com/cgi/HerronR ... =289651964
Jon

SLR 393 wrote:Not just the Mallets, they were not around very long. There was no turntable at Bartlett, so they used the wye. Its still in place, I had the chance to "run" on it in a motorocar about 10 years ago just to say we had done it! the Mountain Division book is a treasure if you have any interest in this line. Around $70-100 on ebay.

There once was a turntable in Bartlett in fact the round house is still standing but the turntable was removed just after that last steam trains pulled out for good. After that the Y was used as the main source for turning the helping engines around. It wasn't until the MEC retired there F units that the Y itself started becoming sparsely used because the engines taking place of the F units. It didn't really matter which direction the engine was in because they could operate in both direction... no different than the engines today.

I believe the turntable was removed at the time the Mallets arrived (around 1920). But, I don't have my dog-eared well-worn much-loved covers-falling-off copy of the bible -err- Mountain Division book here at work. I'll check on it though.

rls

I just checked the Big Book. Turntable pulled out in 1912 because the mallets were too long for it.

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It's about time they start fixing it. I didn't think it would last too much longer. I can not wait to see what it looks like when it is all done. Would be nice to see a turn table installed but I know that will never happen.

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I was up in Bartlett on Jan 20 for a research trip of the line. There were 3 NHDOT employees at the roundhouse site when I showed up in hard hats. Just a little bit of work has been done, they added a "false wall" to the rear to keep the rif raf out....kinda hard to see in this scaled down shot.