Last Sunday I went to Westmoreland, New Hampshire, which is North West of Keene on the banks of the Connecticut River. Westmoreland is an island of alkaline soil in county of mainly acidic soil. In fact, much of this part of the state has acid soil. If you are trying to find plants that like alkaline soil like hepatica, anemone, and many types of orchids, acid soil can be a problem.
Knowing where the plants you are searching for are likely to grow isn’t enough though-you still need access to the land. Fortunately the Cheshire Railroad provided that many years ago. The railroad was named after Cheshire County, New Hampshire.
This stretch of railroad once ran from Bellows Falls, Vermont to various towns in northern Massachusetts after being built in the mid-1800s. The route runs through, rather than over or around this hill. This is known as a deep cut.
This is what it looked like circa 1870 when it was relatively new. If I had to guess I’d say the man on the right was picking berries. Raspberries, blackberries and black raspberries grow all along the railroad beds in this area. The Cheshire Railroad was swallowed up by the Fitchburg (Massachusetts) Railroad, which in turn was bought out by the Boston and Maine Railroad. This picture is from the Cheshire County Historical Society.
Many railroad spurs in this area had their tracks torn up and were abandoned from the mid-60s to the mid-70s. This section is well known to ice climbers and snowmobilers. Ice climbers have to beware at this time of year though, because much of this ice is rotten. In fact, in places you can hear water running down the stone behind the ice. The height of this ledge was probably 25-30 feet.
Piles of railroad ties line the cut and remind visitors of its history.
In places the walls of this man made canyon soar up to 70 feet or more. It’s easy to see why it was called a deep cut. Out of view-several hundred yards to the left-the north/south Route 12 highway goes up and over this hill.
The railroad workers made their way through the hillsides by drilling holes into the stone and then blasting. Deep holes like these were probably drilled by steam power and are evidence that black powder, rather than dynamite, was used. Packing these holes with black powder and lighting a fuse was a very dangerous business and many were killed doing it, but dynamite wasn’t invented until 1866, so it was either black powder or brute force. After the wall face was blasted away someone had to clean up tons of stone. There are several dump sites that can be seen from the highway, but they are quite far from this cut.
Not all of the blasted stone was dumped-miles of stone retaining walls line the cut and hold back the hillside. The railroad company must have had stone cutters working right at the site, cutting and fitting the blasted stone into stone walls that have stood since the mid-1800s. The railroad also dug deep drainage ditches between the roadbed and walls to keep everything dry. They still work fine today.
Some of the ditches had strange things going on in them. In places algae (?) grew in long strands.
Years of mineral seepage had stained the stones here and there.
With all the stone in the area lichens were easily found. This is frosted grain-spored lichen (Sarcogyne regularis.) Reflective crystals of wax-like material make the red-brown fruiting bodies appear blue.
The crown of an intermediate wood fern (Dryopteris spinulosa var. intermedia) showed great promise, with several fiddle heads all ready to start growing.
Medusa moss (Hedwigia ciliata) grew on boulders. This moss is easy to identify because of thepale, whitish tips on its leaves and bright red-orange stems. Dry plants look like clusters of stiff, frosty worms.
The deepest parts of the cut don’t see much, if any, sunshine so there was more snow there than I expected. Still, things like this small clump of grass were green and growing. I’m going to try to get back here at least once each week to see what else grows here.
There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. ~ Paul Scott Mowrer
Thanks for coming by.
It’s like the cut is its own little world, somehow…the shadows and moisture and running water, minerals seeping through the stone and trees leaning over the old track. Very nice post, Allen.
Thanks Scott. That place was indeed a lot like a lost land that has been cut off from the rest of the world somehow, and it was a real interesting place to spend a day hiking. I can’t wait to see what grows there.
You’re welcome, Allen…I’m sure you’ll have a great time there…will look forward to the photos you bring back from your next adventure there.
Abandoned railroads are great places to walk and see wildlife. Thank you for such wonderful narrative surrounding the history of the railroad.
You’re welcome Jo Ann, and thank you for stopping in. I’ve been enjoying your blog as well-I don’t see too many blogs from Virginia.
Love the photos and the background information details. Great post, thank you for sharing.
You’re welcome, and thanks for stopping in.
That was impressive construction for that time. I am always amazed at what inventive humans can accomplish, especially without modern tools.
I agree, it’s amazing to think of all the work that was done by hand.
An incredibly interesting post accompanied by some excellent photos.
Thank you Sandy. That’s high praise, comming as it does from someone with a blog like yours.
Railroad tracks are a favorite place of mine to walk too. Wildlife is often abundant along the side of the tracks. Birds pick the gravel that is found in the track beds. Native wildflowers you will find later on I bet. Thanks for sharing this cool place with the deep cuts it is different and special.
We had railroad tracks running in back of our house when I was a boy so I pretty much grew up walking them. We didn’t have anything like this nearby though, so it was unusual to see. I’ll bet it’s nice and cool there in summer.
That old line sure makes a great place to hike though! Amazing what they did for the trains!
It is a great place to hike. Nice and flat and dry, and it goes on for miles that way.
Enjoyed the variety of the hike. Enjoyed to many to list them …
Thank you for saying so. These posts often have quite a lot of information in them!
They show a person just how much can be seen if one slows to look and enjoy.
I hope so!
I wish I had your eye for the fungus and lichen world.
Like anything else it just takes practice. Once you’ve found 2 or 3 you start seeing them everywhere you go. I can imagine that it would be hard for a birder to keep their eyes off of the sky long enough to find the smaller things though.
There is another place called Deep Cut along an abandoned railbed in Manassas, VA. That endeavor went bankrupt before the rails were laid, so all they have is the cut. Part of the Second Battle of Manassas took place at Deep Cut. Both side ran out of ammunition and resorted to throwing stones at one another. I used to visit that place at least once per month.
It’s amazing that they would spend all that time and money making the cut and never lay the rails! I’ll bet there were plenty of stones for them to throw at each other, and better those than bullets.
When the money runs out, there are not a lot of choices left. I think they still had an enormous amount of work to do on the line before they coul lay any rail.
No, you wouldn’t get very far with no money trying to build a railroad. It must have cost millions, even in the 1800s.
A beautiful walk. I love the picture of the Lichens.
Thank you. I post lichen photos quite regularly, so if you like them you’ve come to the right place!
Excellent post! We tend to forget just how much work went into something like the railroads, and not only the physical labor involved. That was a huge engineering job back in its time, and then there were the logistics of feeding and housing the workers.
Thanks Jerry. I know what you mean-just this one cut must have been a huge undertaking that involved hundreds if not thousands of people.
You have beautiful places in New Hampshire, thanks for sharing them with us.
You’re welcome Chris.
Great post! I haven’t toured Westmoreland yet, but I did get some railroad history this week in Troy (which will be posted on 3/18)
Thanks! I’m looking forward to what you found in Troy. There’s a lot of history in that area too.
Fascinating landscape. I love the quote. All the facts about the railroads made it so interesting. I love walking but walking with someone who knows about the area makes it much richer.
I agree, and I wish I’d had such a person with me! Fortunately though, our railroad history is well documented.