Railroads have quite a history in New England.

rail mileage peaked right during World War One, but began to decline shortly after that.

So what happens to railroad tracks when they're no longer used?

Stick around.

You'll find out what one family thought should be done.

Welcome to Windows to the Wild.

I'm Willem Lange.

Over 170 years ago, the Northern Railroad laid track.

It carried freight and passengers into central New Hampshire.

Well, the Northern Railroad now is long gone, but some of the track remains.

There'’’s a section of it right here that has come to be used for something quite different from its original purpose.

Joining me today to discuss this transition, this transformation is the guy who did it, Gary LeBlanc.

Gary, it is such a pleasure.

Pardon me for not rising.

That'’’s fine Will.

But you're the guy who did this, right?

Yeah.

No, I. I saw a purpose for old rails that weren't being used for anything, and we cleared the track and built these bikes.

And people have been enjoying it for the last four years.

Where did the idea come from?

You know, believe it or not, I saw it on Facebook.

Another company was doing it in the U.S. And you'd built these, I guess you call cars, right?

We call them rail bikes.

Rail bikes?

Yep.

They are fantastic.

Oh, thank you.

Quiet as can be.

They go like smoke.

Yeah.

This one go too fast.

I can't keep up with my partners going faster than I am.

thinking of my partner.

That's.

It's Marshal Hudson.

Yes.

You've written this line.

I have.

Marshal'’’s the reason I'm in Concord, New Hampshire, today.

You'’’ll hear his story and get to know him as we ride the trails together.

I don't know.

Maybe we ought to just do it now.

It's a beautiful we've got the Merrimack River right here.

We do.

Imagine the old steam engines coming up this road.

Yeah.

It must have been a sight to see.

Oh, yeah.

Must have been something.

But before we get too far down the track, a bit of history.

You're looking at the last remaining section of the Northern Railroad.

The ties and steel rails were laid down in 1846.

The tracks extended nearly 70 miles from Concord, New Hampshire, to White River Junction, Vermont.

The railroad moved a lot of freight and passengers until 1890.

That's when it was taken over by the Boston and Maine Railroad.

Traffic and the road declined after World War Two.

In the 1990'’’s the track was abandoned.

The track that we're running on originally put down in the late 1800s was the Northern Railroad.

And there's not much of it left i mean basically six miles of track left of the Northern Railroad from back back in those days.

And we're using about half of that track at this point.

So I kind of think that we're we're saving a piece of history by doing this.

what Garry's done is open this historic track to the public.

You know, if you're up to the task, leg power moves rail bikes along what's left of New Hampshire's Northern Railroad.

How'd you find the place?

Oh, I actually got lucky.

I basically search for my track on Google Earth and spotted this.

And checked it out and then got a hold of the railroad company that owned it.

Came up and walked it with my son, and we decided on which end we were going to use and put this one on the track first.

I put a lot into it, researched the industry, researched all the all the companies that were doing that out there, and then made the decision to to try to move forward.

It just seemed like such a strange thing to get obsessed about.

Yeah, well, I mean, that was I'm getting close to retirement and I figured, you know, this is something that everybody was in close retirement says they're starting a railroad.

You know, I had model trains when I was a kid, so I've always liked the railroad.

I always been fascinated with it, you know?

So I figured, these are these are cool.

You know, I would enjoy doing this.

You found this place?

I did.

Who did you have to deal with the railroad Pan Am on that at the time.

Yep.

So I had to.

Had to work out a lease with them.

Gary had a lease in hand and 6.4 miles of railway to boot.

That's when he and his family got to work.

They built scenic Rail riders.

So then the work began, right?

Yeah, it was very grown over.

I mean, we had a tough time even walking it, and it was so thick.

Really?

Yeah.

Wow.

Lots of trees growing up through it.

Thorns.

And you can just imagine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we had to go through and clear it all.

So essentially, I built one four seat bike as a prototype.

You know, and that became our, our buggy that we used to clear the tracks.

Oh yeah.

We loaded that thing up.

You know, we had four of us on there and put a board across the front and we had a bucket on each side with all the tools in.

It sat my daughter on the board in the middle and the front bumper up there, and the five of us went down the tracks.

We kind of looked like the old Clampits back in the day.

Human engines move the bikes in two directions south on a 2.4 mile round trip.

Then they turn around underneath the round table and head north for a four mile round trip.

Now when people come out here, they come from all over the place.

They.

Yeah, a lot of people like to come to New Hampshire to vacation, so we got people coming from down South Carolina, Florida.

We have people coming from California, Arizona.

I mean, they're all coming out and they get here and they want to do this now, which is kind of incredible how, you know, attracting people from all over the U.S. is very good.

And somehow this this railway attracted your attention.

Yeah, I was driving by one day and going up Sewell's Falls Road.

Yeah.

And a lady with a stop sign jumped out in front of me and stopped traffic.

And.

And, you know, you're used to construction people flying out.

And so I stopped and waited.

And a few minutes later, these rail carts went across the road.

And I thought, that's interesting.

And I pulled into the parking lot and started asking questions.

Yeah.

So I mentioned earlier that I'm here because of Marshall.

I read a story about the Rail Riders in New Hampshire magazine.

It intrigued me and I had to meet the person who wrote it.

Now, Marshall, you don't spend your life running up and down this little bit of railroad with visiting videographers, right?

Not usually, No, no, no.

But you're a licensed surveyor.

I'’’m a land Surveyor Correct.

Working on it?

Well, I'm retired.

I've kept my license, so I still do a little bit here and there, but I'm retired.

Good.

And you've been a farmer, right?

Yeah.

Born and raised on a New Hampshire dairy farm.

Oh, and I grew up with cows and stuff, so I kept the farm.

And I own a little gentleman's farm now.

And you're writing?

I yeah.

I don't consider myself a writer, but I've been writing lately.

I've been writing for New Hampshire magazine.

Yeah, I've read some of that stuff.

your'’’e good Well, thank you.

I hate to admit it, but you really are.

Make me jealous.

Well, thank you.

How many bikes do you have?

21 total.

I see.

They all have names.

They do.

My family actually named them all.

And we've got some pretty cool names in there.

We went with, like Larry, Moe, Curly, Romeo, Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, Thelma and Louise.

And then we've got some Thomas the train show character names as well that the kids kind of enjoy.

Bert and Ernie yup.

love these little cars you made that that was you're saying on the outside, the little wheels.

The wheels, right.

Aluminum wheels.

The bikes are all aluminum, with the exception.

The axles, those are stainless steel.

It's really quiet.

I mean, they don't rumble on the tracks at all.

Yep.

Very nice.

Oh, and you.

The lips on the wheels actually hit the joiner plates Just.

Just tick them so you kind of get the railroad feel as you're pedaling.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, You get that.

Thump thump thump So your best bet is.

Turn around.

Sit on the seat first.

Yep.

And then you can lift the leg up from over the back.

Now, if you're wondering, as I was about the effort it takes to pedal a rail bike, keep this in mind.

I have more metal in my leg than you'll find in a small hardware store.

I did have a problem holding my left foot on the pedal, but our videographer, taped it to the pedal.

I have families that, you know, families will bring their grandparents along.

They'll sit them on a bike.

And, you know, once in a while, the grandparents will throw a pedal or two in here and there and the other people just pick up the slack for them.

Yeah, we take kids, you know, we buckle car seats onto our seats.

So kids of all ages.

So makes a great day for, you know, on a two seater, you know, young couples going on a date.

Yeah, I guess.

I guess so.

Sort of a test.

Yeah.

We've actually had a couple of wedding proposals on our tours as well.

Is that right?

Yep.

Get away from me.

I'm already taken Willem.

Yeah, well, we had a couple propose right over here about the picnic tables at this event.

That's another couple proposed at the bridge at the other end.

Did they both say yes?

they did.

Oh, alleluia.

Okay, good.

Marshall'’’s story about the Railriders describes more than the experience he writes about discoveries he made along the way.

This six mile section of track, which is what Gary uses for his operation here has three major historical sites on it.

Right?

At least three.

There's three The three significant ones, the Soules Falls Dam would be the first one that was a timber crib dam that went across the Merrimack River and provided hydroelectric power for most of the Concord area for a long time.

For who people don't know what is a timber crib dam?

Think of it as like Lincoln Logs.

Yep.

Put together and spiked in place.

Yeah.

Built into a square and then filled with rock.

And the rock is actually the weight that keeps it from floating Keeps the timber from.

From separating and floating away.

Yeah.

And the next one up is as you continue up, probably the next historical figure would be the old Penicuik railroad depot down here.

Now, you know the depot building is still there.

It's not like it was when it was the Penicuik Railroad Depot station and people were using it regularly.

And that's where the train crash.

It was the train that we're on here, there's a siding that pulls off onto the front of the depot.

High school kids got the blame.

I don't know that they ever proved it, but some high school kids with a rifle shot the padlock off the switching post, you know, and when they unlocked it, they were able to then turn the switch and the rails shifted.

And so a southbound train coming this way took this took the landing at full speed and smacked into the cars on the box, the box cars that were on the landing and smashed.

Oh, what a mess.

No one was killed, but you had train engines and overturned railroad cars all over the place down here.

The third historic site is just up the tracks from where we are on a small island in Boscawen.

It's a statue and a dust that stands 35 feet tall.

She holds a hatchet and scalps.

Her story is not an easy one to tell, but this as far as we know, the spot where Hannah Duston committed her her deed.

1697, down in Haverhill, Mass.

It was the frontier at the time, and there was friction between the Native Americans and the English colonists, you know, and and there was a raid on the on the Colonial village.

Some say it was inspired by the French.

They encouraged the Native Americans to attack the village.

They did.

They burned houses and they killed some 20 or 30 people in in Haverhill.

And then they took captives, including Hannah Dustin, her newborn baby, and their nurse.

And they were bringing them to Canada, either to sell to French for slaves or for ransom to ransom them back to the to the thing.

And they marched them for days.

And as they were marching from from Haverhill, they got this far.

And during the night, Hannah Dustin killed the Indians at that held her here on this island, stole a canoe, got into the river and beat feet back down to Haverhill.

Well, the baby got killed along the way.

And the controversy here is in the context of it, some view her as a hero.

You know, they kidnaped her, they killed her baby, and she killed her abductors and scalped them and escaped back to Haverhill.

If you are from that perspective, she's a hero.

Others view her as a villain, you know, the Native Americans were fighting for their land.

The English colonists were pushing them out of the way.

They were defending their land, their territory.

And when they brought her here, the the the ones that had captive capted her left her with a family here, family of Native Americans.

And so she killed a lot of women and children here on the island, not just the warriors that had taken her.

And then she got in the canoe and escaped down the river.

Well, partway down the river, she turned around and came back and scalped them because she wanted proof that it had happened.

And so you can look at it and say, well, she could have kept going if she was just escaping.

She didn't need to come back and scalping which kind of takes some of the heroism and makes her more of a more of a villain in the process.

She didn't need to come back and do that.

There was a bounty on scalps and she collected the bounty.

So they put up a statue to her and the statue had a rough life.

Somebody with a rifle shot off her nose.

Vandals have painted blood on the tomahawk in their hand or on the base of the scalps and they've cleaned it up afterwards.

And it kind of depends on if you view her as a villain.

And that's one way of expressing your outrage.

Marshall's work as a land surveyor helped him this story.

There are other gems he's discovered along the way.

Many of them end up in New Hampshire magazine.

Yeah, one every month now, right?

I do.

I for the past six years, I've provided, one a month.

The last couple that I've written that I've enjoyed.

And one of them had to do with a dam up in Warren, where I was working with the dam construction crew up there.

And we had poured concrete that morning and then took it take a lunch break.

And while we were having lunch, Bigfoot came walking out of the woods and joined us for our little lunch break.

And I think that's a pretty neat experience.

How many people do you know that actually have had lunch with Bigfoot?

And then whom I would admit to knowing I could tell you.

So that was a favorite story.

You know, another one.

Did he speak English?

Yes.

And he eats Pringles potato chips.

I'm on the case.

Yet another.

Another one that I did recently had to do with a stonewall.

Did you read that one?

I did.

Stone wall goes down the road and then somehow it's a very squared off stonewall.

And somehow as it's going down the road, it rotates 90 degrees and is kind of an optical illusion the way that it happens, because you can't tell where exactly it starts and where it comes out of a twist.

But it actually makes a twist like a drill bit as it goes down the road and it goes airborne at that point where it does twist, there's a drainage ditch under the wall.

And so all those rocks are held up contrary to gravity.

And it's kind of a unique feature, you know, how it's like that and it's kind of a neat thing.

And I found that one just driving down the road.

Yeah, there it is.

Pull over.

Oh, that's great.

You found the builder, though.

I did talk to the builder.

Yeah.

You know, it's a secret, but I did talk to the builder.

Yes.

So I do know how he was able to.

Able to do that.

Yeah.

That was one surveying job that took Marshall down that dusty dirt road to a remote farm in a remote area.

It let him do an abandoned cellar.

He had the deeds and with some research, made a surprising discovery.

Read enough of the deeds and surveys you.

You catch things that look odd.

When I started looking into it, I discovered that that place was the hideout where the Boston Brinks robbery that took place in Boston in 1950, where 11 crooks broke in and cleaned out the Brinks counting house.

And they got away with almost $3 million.

And then the money's never been recovered and they got away clean and left very little clues.

And the Boston police and the FBI had very little idea who was behind it and who they were looking for.

So the crooks were looking for a place to hide out for the six year statute of limitations.

And when the statute of limitations had run out, they were then looking forward to coming forward and spending the money.

And if you're in Boston and you're hiding out from a crime like that, where do you go?

Well, you go to some little remote New Hampshire place possible.

And I and I found it and I haven't found the money yet, but I'm going to it's got to be there somewhere.

It's like Oak Island.

It could be life for someone that's not there.

Yes.

Well, that's exciting.

Or just the same.

That's great.

You're sure this is the place?

I'm sure it's the place.

Am I sure the money's there?

no I don't know, but I'm sure it's the site.

Yeah.

Back on the tracks.

Visitors can write their own stories when you're outdoors, you know, anything can happen occasionally.

We see some deer out here.

You know, the deer, they'll walk right across in front of you, you know, down the track.

You know, and they'll turn their head and look at you.

And as you get closer to them, then they'll jump off and go through the woods.

So it's kind of cool.

It is nice.

Yeah.

Now, what do they what do they?

This is obviously a different experience for them from.

Yeah, well, I mean, how often and where can you go to actually pedal on on top of the railroad tracks.

You know, and it's, it's a kind of a novelty idea initially.

And then, I mean, we run along the Merrimack River, so we have some nice views to offer as well.

So they get their exercise.

They do.

It's a light workout for people.

And, you know, as long as you have everybody pedaling on the bike, it's not that big a pedal.

As long as, you know, everybody wants to pedal.

And I'm just glad that we get to actually use it, know then, you know, before they try to rip it up and make it a rail trail, you know, people can enjoy, you know, riding on the rails and seeing a part of Concord that most people don't see.

I say that you're you're right in the middle of setting it up, but you're not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can't hear any cars going by or anything.

You all you can hear is a river running out here on it.

Doesn't get much nicer than that.

It's a nice piece of history.

I'm glad that we're we're getting to use it and I hope we get to continue to get to use it.

Yeah.

Going forward.

You know, I love being here, seeing the people when they when they finish how much they enjoy doing this.

You know, it's just people get done and they're like, oh, we're going to tell our friends and we'll coming back again.

You know, if people come in the summertime, then they want to come back in the fall and do it again in the fall.

And then we get our repeat customers that come back and do it once or twice a year, which I think is great.

Well, as you can see, we've kind of petered out a bit, slowed down at the end at the end of the run, we're just about at the end of this run.

And we're also at that part of the program that I like, least the time we got to say goodbye.

But we shall.

Marshall, I cannot thank you enough.

You're welcome.

We must do this sort of thing again.

We should do it again.

But not here.

Different place, different story.

So we'll be okay.

Okay.

Very well.

Meanwhile.

Bye.

Bye.

I'm Willem Lange and I hope to see you again on Windows to the Wild.

Support for the production of Windows to the Wild is provided by the Alice J. Reen Charitable Trust.

Bailey Charitable Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Make a gift to the wild and support the Willem Lange Endowment Fund established by a friend of New Hampshire PBS to learn how you can keep environmental nature and outdoor programing possible for years to come, call our development team at 6038684467.

Thank you.