I took advantage of a gorgeous late spring day to drive up thru northern New Hampshire to Canada, just to see what there was to be seen. After leaving Franconia Notch behind to the south, things get thinner and thinner as the Canadian border is approached. There is only one road (old US 3) that goes all the way. The last 30 miles to the border run thru a national forest (created in 1939). The road has shrunk down to two narrow lanes with bumps and sharp curves for these last 30 miles. About 50 miles south of the border, running alongside the upper Connecticut River, I found the Central Railroad of NH Car Repair Facility. See photo.
formatting link
On either side of the repair shop they had long lines of really clapped out boxcars, graffiti covered, original road names painted over, but fairly modern, no roof walks, roller bearings. Presumably they were awaiting repair at the car repair facility. Central New Hampshire RR Inc is described as a class III railroad, revenues less than $5 mil providing freight service between Lunenburg VT and Whitefield NH over8.47 miles of track leased from the State of New Hampshire. This facility could make a neat model, out in the boonies and an excuse to park any number of cars out in the woods. At the same driveway off US 3 there was also ?Bear Paw Energy? with a big vertical fuel oil tank and some horizontal propane tanks. This would justify as much tank car traffic as one could desire. It seemed like a cool little traffic generating site out in the middle of no where that could be modeled when I get some bench work done.
David Starr