Historic Railroad Artifacts Returned to the Northern Rail Trail

Culvert marker and a whistle sign

August 20, 2014 • Saved under Outdoors
By Ed Hiller, FNRT volunteer

Ed Hiller poses with the sign that FNRT volunteers restored on the Rail Trail.

I recently received a call from Andy Phelps of South Danbury regarding a marker that he found in the Danbury dump. He planned to use it as a decorative post in his yard. But then he read in August 2014 issue of The Andover Beacon about the recovery and restoration of the granite milepost in Lebanon and realized that the marker he had was probably from the rail trail. He wanted to see it restored to its original location, so he contacted the Friends of the Northern Rail Trail, which led him to me.

This post turned out to be a culvert marker, marked 106-40, indicating 106.40 miles from Boston. Its original position was clearly marked on the historic railroad map, 0.4 mile north of milepost B-106, a short distance north of Eagle Pond Road in Wilmot.

On August 16, Andy Phelps, Lee Ford of South Danbury, and I re-installed it at its original location.

Earlier this summer, the sign reading “One Long Whistle” was restored and returned to its historic location. This sign is a remnant of the times when the Winter Hill Ice Company was active in harvesting ice from Highland Lake (1911 through 1928). The sign ordered the locomotive engineer to blow his whistle as a warning to the workers who were loading blocks of ice into box cars positioned close by on the side track next to the main line.

This sign disappeared years ago, when the side track for the ice house was taken up. It eventually ended up in the cellar of a nearby farm house (the Smith Sanborn place). Recently Matt Langlais, a member of the family that presently owns the house, found the sign and re-installed it, although in a very faded condition and on the wrong side of the post because of blockage caused by encroaching trees.

The restoration effort began with Ricker Miller removing the problem trees. Ralph Ressler then removed the sign, having to deal with rusted bolts. I then undertook to restore the faded lettering, having regained some confidence in my free-hand painting ability by restoring the mile markers for the Valley Street bridge.

The Friends of the Northern Rail Trail in Merrimack County wish to thank Ed Hiller and all those involved for their passion in restoring and returning these historical railroad artifacts to the rail trail.