(rshsdepot) Contoocook, NH

[I95BERNIEW_@_aol.com]

From today's Concord Monitor.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Groups give railroad bridge new life 
Renovations preserve 1890s look of depot  

 
By Shira Schoenberg
Monitor staff

 
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At the turn of the 20th century, travelers on the Concord-Claremont railroad  
line would stop in Contoocook. The train would pull up to the depot in the 
town  center, where a stationmaster sat selling tickets, pounding on an Oliver  
typewriter and sending messages by teletype. Travelers heading west could 
cross  paths with riders going to Worcester, Mass. When trains pulled out, they 
crossed  the Contoocook River on a scenic covered bridge.  
This picturesque New England scene today has been replaced by restaurants and 
 shops in Contoocook's center, but it is a vision that organizations hope to  
recreate by renovating the depot and bridge and by bringing an old railroad 
car  to sit on the site of the former tracks.  
"This was the front door to our town, what everyone saw when they arrived in  
Contoocook," said Cathy Chesley, who is on the board of directors of the  
Contoocook Riverway Association. "To have a place where history can come alive,  
that's our dream."  
The Contoocook Bridge, one of five covered railroad bridges in the state and  
seven in New England, had its last maintenance job done by the Boston and 
Maine  Railroad - which stopped using the bridge in 1963, according to David 
Wright,  president of the National Society for the Preservation of Covered 
Bridges. It is  the oldest covered railroad bridge in the world, built in 1889, and 
could  support the weight of a 250,000-pound locomotive with a car carrying 
coal or  wood, said Tim Andrews of Barns and Bridges of New England, which is 
doing the  renovation work.  
The renovations started this summer and should be completed by the end of  
this month.  
     

 
(http://oamscmads.us.publicus.com/apps/OAMS.dll/link/CM001/MEDIUMRECTANGLE/REPOSITORY/20032975771201108/-1/-/;IDN=839654416;Type=3) 
The bridge was  used for canoe storage and flea markets under private 
ownership. In 1989, it  became the property of the town of Hopkinton, which donated 
it to the state in  1990. It now is used for pedestrians and snowmobiles.  
Over time, dirt and debris built up in its corners, and splashing water  
moistened its supports. The supporting beams had been there since the hurricane  
of 1938, when the bridge washed off the beams and nearly tipped over, forcing  
repairs. Andrews said a six-inch birch tree grew under the bridge.  
The wood supporting the 280,000-pound bridge decayed with neglect, Andrews  
said, and the state had no money to maintain it. The bridge began to lean, and  
if it were not fixed soon, decay could have spread from the corners to its  
midsection, and repair costs would escalate from the current $50,000 to more  
than half a million dollars.  
"We got there in the nick of time," Wright said. "If we hadn't dug the bridge 
 out, we'd be looking at a half a million dollar repair or no bridge."  
Wright said discussion started in 1994, but there was no money available.  
Andrews said trying to get federal money could have cost triple the price of  
repairs.  
"It's not unreasonable to expect the federal government would require an  
engineering study of $150,000 before the work," he said.  
The bridge is administered by the Division of Historical Resources, which has 
 no capital budget, said state architectural historian James Garvin. About 
two  years ago, the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges 
received  money as a legacy for its Eastman-Thomas Fund, which was used for the 
project.  The Department of Transportation donated the use of a steel beam to 
prop up the  bridge. Andrews is paying his workers but volunteering his time.  
After these repairs are complete, the Department of Historical Resources will 
 use a transportation-enhancement grant and revenue from conservation license 
 plates to install a sprinkler system, paint the exterior, and install signs 
and  security lighting.  
In the past decade, workers from the society have dug out the corners, fixed  
the roof, added flame-retardant coating and replaced the sideboard, Wright 
said.  In the current renovations, Andrews jacked up the sides of the bridge and 
is  replacing the wood underneath it.  
Next to the bridge lies the Contoocook Railroad Depot, built in 1850 and  
owned by the nonprofit Contoocook Riverway Association. The association bought  
the depot from the town for $1 about five years ago, Chesley said. After the  
demise of the railroad, the old building had been owned by an insurance agency  
and then stood empty.  
But during the past several years, the association has been restoring it to  
the condition it was in during the late 1890s, the first time the station used 
 the train-order signal on the building's roof - a contraption of colored 
lenses  and a lantern that told trains when to stop and go.  
"A lot of people had stuff, and no one knew where it was. When the depot  
became a reality, artifacts started showing up from everywhere," Chesley said.  
According to the Department of Historical Resources, the depot was the  
transportation and communications hub of Contoocook - a mill village that became  a 
commercial center under the railroad's influence.  
The association put up old signs - a blue-and-white porcelain Contoocook  
station sign and smaller ones advertising "Western Union telegraph and cable  
office" and "American Express Co.," which were last on the building in the  
1930s. A wheeled wooden baggage cart stands out front. Inside, the men's waiting  
area has an 1885 wooden bench and an 1880 wood-burning stove, now powered by  
propane. A map of North America on the wall includes "British Territory" north  
of the United States.  
Women used to wait for trains in a separate room.  
"The ladies nursed and wanted to keep the cowboys and ruffians on the other  
side," said the association's vice president, Dane Malcolm.  
The association hopes the site of the former tracks, now a grass island in  
the parking lot, will soon house a new railroad platform and a 1907 coach,  
donated by David Woodbury of New Boston.  
The building was opened in a 2005 celebration before the artifacts were  
added.  
Its upper story is used as a meeting place for community organizations while  
renovations are done downstairs. The association hopes they will be completed 
 within a year. Chesley said renovations cost $400,000, of which about 
$360,000  came from a transportation-enhancement grant. The rest came from private 
and  corporate donations. The association still is looking for an additional 
$75,000  for landscaping, handicapped accessibility and transportation of the 
coach. 

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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