Welcome! Many of you have been directed to this page by viewing our new banner on Maine Central Railroad boxcar 35059. We thank you for visiting. Please check back as we are building a brand new website that will better inform you of our doings. Though the sign is up, we have no set timeline for opening the property, it is owned by the State of New Hampshire. The building remains closed to the public as the structure still needs to be repaired and is unsafe in some sections. PLEASE...if you are going to visit the property to take photos, USE THE CROSSING. Please DO NOT CROSS THE TRACKS!! The rail line is active and run by the folks at the Conway Scenic Railroad. Crossing the tracks by doing so not at the crossing is considered trespassing and is punishable by fines! (up to $100). We join the State of NH and Operation Lifesaver in educating folks about safety around the railroad lines. Again, please check back, you will automatically be redirected to our new website once it is online.
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WE ARE BACK!!!! Hello everyone, we are back after a few setbacks. We lost our membership roster while doing a transfer of files from one computer to a newer computer! IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED A DUES/ DONATION FORM YOU CAN SEND IN $10 TO: The Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society PO BOX 16 Bartlett, NH 03812 We are 501C3 compliant and all donations are tax-deductible!!
First work session of the year
Hi everyone, the Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society had it's first full work session today at the Roundhouse in Bartlett. N.H. Doug Andrew came up and did a fantastic job mowing the grounds, weed wacking, and cutting small trees along the new driveway. I organized some piles of lumber left by previous contractors and swept out the dust, dirt, and leaves from the floor. I had a nice lunch at Cabin Fever across the tracks and climbed up onto the roof of the snowplow to inspect the cupola. The cupola is not fairing well and will need help before the end of the season. Our next work date will be on Sunday, June 30th when I intend to begin working on the cupola of the snowplow. I am asking anyone who wishes to join our group and has some carpentry skills to please feel free to do so. Things got wrapped up in time at the roundhouse for me to stop and take pictures of the Conway Scenic Railroad's Valley train as it pulled into town. I got some nice pics of my friend Bill Willis,
A look back at the year and Pete Davis retires.
Looking back at 2018 was quite an eye-opener. We accomplished a great deal during that time. In particular, we saw great progress on our restoration process with the inclusion of a grant from the Land & Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP) organization which, coupled with a matching grant from the State of New Hampshire, allowed us to contract with Gordon T Burke and Sons to continue the restoration work on the sides of stalls one, two, and four, and the backs of stalls three and four. The grant money came in later than expected, but Burke was able to redo the side of stall one, retaining much of the existing siding while repairing sills along the rear area where the extension had been done. Much of the wood at the bottom was rotted and replaced. They also replaced the old plywood in the windows and repaired damage to the sills to allow installation of plywood sheets held in by molding to secure the structure from the weather. Our driveway, which had been in the works
Albert R. Webb Awards Bartlett Roundhouse 2,000.00
WW&F receives 2019 H. Albert Webb Memorial Railroad Preservation Award The Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts, Inc. (“Mass Bay RRE”) has announced that the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum of Alna, Maine, is the recipient of the 2019 H. Albert Webb Memorial Railroad Preservation Award. This $10,000 grant will enable the WW&F to purchase track materials and services needed to complete the Museum’s ambitious “Mountain Extension” project. “The Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum is ecstatic with the interest that the Mountain Extension has received from the entire heritage railway community, and we thank the Mass Bay RRE, and Leigh Webb in particular, for their support of this project. The continued restoration of the WW&F Railway would not be possible without the enthusiasm and excitement among railroad preservationists. We appreciate the long-time support from the Mass Bay RRE which directly fuels the motivation, interest and progre
An Update and exciting news!!!
Hello friends! What a tremendous year 2018 was for the Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society and the needed repairs on the roundhouse! After we received the grant from the LCHIP organization in December of 2017, it took us a while to get all the pieces in place to begin the work, but we did it! Work started finally in October. Our partners in this project, the New Hampshire Dept of Transportation, acting as our construction managers, worked closely with Burke and Sons Co nstruction to gather the necessary materials, repair the bottom sills along much of the front of stall one and a portion of the rear of the wall on stall four, and begin the lengthy job of residing and repairing the window mounts and plywood to help keep the building more secure. Weather precluded finishing off the top part of the stall four walls, which will wait until spring. Still in the plan is to add some plywood to the rear of stalls three and four and put in some form of grating at the top to allow f
Plow 68 work. These photos and story are from Cam Sargent. Another successful day of repairing/restoring equipment at the Bartlett Roundhouse today! After a rainy start, Pete Davis , Bob Marshall, and I began removing more of the old sheathing boards from the woods side of Portland Terminal snowplow #68. By lunchtime, the weather turned in our favor, and we finished installing the new sheathing boards, and Bob caulked the seams. The next step will be to ad the quarter-rounds to the edges and finish caulking them. Then a primer coat, and a green paint coat.
WORK SESSIONS FOR 2018 The work session dates for the 2018 season are as follows: May 26/27, June 9/10, July (most of us are wrapped up with Thomas, so we'll have to see if we need to schedule a date during that month if there is a need), August 5, September 8/9, October 20/21, and a tentative date for November 4 (mostly to winterize the property, remove any paint and other items that need to be stored from freezing). These dates are arranged so that if there is bad weather on one day of the weekend, the other day may be scheduled for the session. Generally, the work sessions will not take up an entire weekend unless there is a great need during a project. This allows for some flexibility for most folks, and if someone is interested in participating in a work session, please let us know in advance so that the sessions can be planned to provide enough activities for those attending. As a particular work session date approaches, I will have a notice posted on the blog as to wha
We need Choo Choo's Do you have trains kicking around your attic or basement? Not sure what to do with them? Consider donating them to the Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society. You can make it a tax-deductible donation. We are mainly looking for HO scale trains but will take any scale. We will sell them as fundraising items and the money will go to help restore the Roundhouse! If you would like to donate please contact Pete at granduck@aol.com or Scotty at scottymallett@gmail.com Thank you very much!!
Greetings friends of the Bartlett Roundhouse! As you can see from the previous posting, this is an exciting day for the Society! We have received a $25000 grant from the NH Land and Community Heritage Investment Program, to be used with allocated matching funds from other sources, to repair and restore all of the exterior walls of the Roundhouse, except the front main door area and the backs of stalls one and two, which our latest grant from the Moose Plate Program allowed us to achieve. This is a historic moment for us. We are now a huge step closer to our ultimate goal of creating a railroad history museum and interpretive center on railroading in Bartlett, Crawford Notch, and northern New Hampshire. Those of us involved in the project from the beginning weren't even thinking this far ahead when we began the process just to save and stabilize the structure back in 2006. This was so far in the future for us that we couldn't even hope to see this day coming. We had gre
Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society Celebrates $25,000 Grant Award NH’s Land and Community Heritage Investment Program awards $3,600,000 to conserve the State’s natural, cultural and historic resources, including preserving the Bartlett, New Hampshire railroad roundhouse. Bartlett NH; December 4, 2017 – Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society, an organization dedicated to restoring and preserving the Bartlett New Hampshire railroad roundhouse, has received a $25,000 grant from the NH Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP) to support its efforts to bring the Bartlett roundhouse back to life as a museum defining the history of railroading in Crawford Notch and northern New Hampshire. T he forty-two projects receiving awards are spread all across the state, from Littleton to Nashua and Westmoreland to Star Island. Thirty-five very different communities are benefiting from the grants, from tiny Langdon (population 689) to Nashua (population 87,551). LCHIP’s
This has been a very interesting series of weeks. As many of you know, there were severe floods on the rivers in and around Bartlett a couple of weeks ago which caused serious damage to the Maine Central Mountain Division in areas along the Saco River. There were a number of washouts and some of our friends in the area lost personal property and vehicles to the incredible water levels. I ran up and checked out the roundhouse shortly after the floods had passed and am pleased to report that it weathered the storms well. The floods did not impact the structure at all. As a matter of face, I visited during a rainstorm and found that the new extension on the back side of the roof at stalls one and two was doing exactly what it was intended to to...moving the water coming off the roof farther away from the wall to prevent it getting back inside as it was before. Thanks to the NH DOT for this small but important improvement to the building! Also, it was recently announced that P
An event took place a few days ago that really brought home how important it is for us to be doing what we are to restore and repurpose the roundhouse to become part of the historical heritage of New Hampshire. The village of Hooksett New Hampshire has had an old road bridge spanning the Merrimack River for many of years. Not too long ago, it was replaced with a more modern span that allowed better traffic movement through the village and the old bridge was retired. It did get listed on the National Register of Historic Places, however, which should have been incentive to see that it survived for posterity. Unfortunately, the structure gradually was allowed to degrade to the point where it had to be destroyed, thereby eliminating an integral piece of our New Hampshire historical narrative. It was dropped to great fanfare a few days ago and is now being removed piecemeal from the river. What struck me most was that this was almost what was to happen to the Bartlett Roundhouse no
Over the past few days a lot of photos have been taken of the work on the back of stalls one and two of the roundhouse. I also have photos, but they will be redundant with those already posted. Suffice to say that work is moving right along and much progress has been made. Cam Sargent, our Vice President advised that the walls have been partially sided now and that that effort should be done fairly quickly, now that the structural repairs and the new sheathing and moisture barrier are in place. Apparently, the upper walls were found to be floating and in need of connection to the structure and that has been done (we had previously had some work done on the bottom, but the top was inaccessible at that time). We are now looking at how this should be painted, once the siding is in place. The building was painted completely green at some point, but, according to our retired archivist, Scott Mallett, the walls were actually green only from the ground up to the bottom of the window sill
We need Choo Choo's
Do you have trains kicking around your attic or basement? Not sure what to do with them? Consider donating them to the Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society. You can make it a tax deductible donation. We are mainly looking for HO scale trains, but will take any scale. We will sell them as fundraising items and the money will go to help restore the Roundhouse! If you would like to donate please contact Pete at granduck@aol.com or Scotty at scottymallett@gmail.com Thank you very much!!
Grant Awarded
Hi All, I wanted to let you all know that The Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society has been awarded a NH Moose Plate Grant by the Division of Historical Resources. The State of NH Bureau of Rail and Transit will be chipping in an addition to the grant. The monies will be used to start rehab of the building and will begin with the rear of Stalls 1&2 which are in need of most repair. The combined total of the grant and funds from the State of NH is $25,000.00. I will let you know more about when the rehab will start as soon as I have the information. Scotty Mallett
New Distributor...................
We are happy to announce that we are now a proud distributor of Herron Rail Videos! We have in stock 3 New England titles. All titles are each $40.00+S&H. You can also grab one at Conway Scenic Railroad's Railfan's day, where we will have a table. To order contact Scott Mallett at scottymallett@gmail.com Titles in stock: MOUNTAIN DIVISION-FEATURING FOOTAGE OF THE ROUNDHOUSE IN OPERATION! BOSTON & MAINE IN THE 4 SEASONS VOL.1 BOSTON & MAINE IN THE 4 SEASONS VOL.2
Rendered Drawings....The Preservation Collaborative
MEC/P&O CSRR One of the last remaining buildings from the Portland & Ogdensburg Railway, the Bartlett Roundhouse structure was completed between 1887 and 1888. Originally si x stalls, the building housed helper engines for the system plus a single logging/yard engine. It was later acquired by the Maine Central Railroad and was altered to meet new needs. Two stalls were removed and later two were elongated for bigger machines. With the decline of steam at the middle of the century, the building fell dormant. The Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society has been working to save this historic structure. We are pleased to have provided them with as-built documentation to further their efforts. Here are two renderings of the proposed rehabilitated structure. The green is the original P&O colors and the yellow scheme is for the Conway Scenic Railroad who operates on the adjacent active railroad. Please visit both their pages to learn more about what each does to conserve