Logging Railroads

This has been brought up in a past topic - - but where did one member say there were physical remains of railroad logging operations - - was it a portion of Lincoln, NH - - or in that vicinity?

Many thanks,

-K

Yes, apparently some remains of the EB&L still exist intact, including some trackage, the remains of a trestle, a narrow-gauge tramway and even a "harp" switchstand.

If you go to the NELoggers Yahoo group and scroll back to somewhere around message #65 you can read about it. There are also pictures in the photo section. Neat stuff.
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/neloggers/

Many thanks

I'm not sure if there's any remnants of track etc in the woods here, but the remains of the town of Livermore (terminus of the Sawyer River logging railroad) can be found on Sawyer River Road just north of Bartlett, NH. This road is off of route 302 and is clearly marked, and there is a private residence and then the foundations of the mill etc off to your left about 1 mile up.

Loon Mountain Ski area at Lincoln has a static display of a logging locomotive, etc. at its entrance. Also, there is a narrow gauge steam locomotive train that operates over about 1/4 mile of track during ski season to shuttle skiers between the two base lodges. Really neat to hear the whistle echoing in the mountains early in the morning!

A bunch of us explored some of the logging ROW's in the White Mountains last year. The after mentioned Sawyers River ROW is now a hiking trail and can be reached by either the former town of Livermore or on the other end along the Kangamangus (sp?) Highway. We hiked the whole way. Of course all the rails are gone, except we did find some rail with a frog still in its original location. After doing some research, we found that the rail laid for the Sawyer River was purchased from the Eastern RR, so we were looking at some real RR history.

We also hiked the Rocky Branch, which connected with the MEC at Glen. That ROW is mostly a hiking trail, so it is very accessable. If you bring either Belcher's or Gove's logging books with you, you can compare the old photos with what you are looking at and imagine where the buildings supporting that operation were located. We also found a long piece of rail still buried in the ground.

If you know what you are looking for you can still see a lot of it, even if many of them went out over 60 years ago. Some ROW were totally impassable, but you could still make out that they were a logging ROW. A lot of fun.

Another (and another, and another) ROW goes from the vicinity of The Dry River Campgound (NH State) off of Rt 302 & heads up towards Mt Washington. You can see the embankment running from Rt 302 (before its current relocation & modification) to the East end of the campground where the trail formerly starts. It continues up the Dry River & the trail follows the ROW.

Another is the trail going from the Crawford Notch station west up to Mt. Willard.

Another is the Zealand trail from the Zealand Campground (USFS) that heads south into the Zealand wilderness.

Check out the UNH topo maps back in the 1890's or so & overlay them with the current AMC trails in that area - you'll see an amazing correspondance.....