Iron Roads of the Monadnock Region: Railroads of Southwestern New Hampshire and North-Central Massachusetts

The last passenger train departed Keene, New Hampshire nearly sixty-five years ago and all of the railroad branch lines that once threaded their way through the river valleys and rugged hill country of the Monadnock Region felt their last trains almost forty years ago. Today, the old roadbeds that were once busy arteries of daily life and commerce, resonant with the sounds of trains, are quiet places but for the wind and the calls of birds. While a fascination with the region’s railroad past is almost tangible, the importance of railroads to the region from the 1840’s through the mid-twentieth century is just unimaginable to most people today.

Iron Roads Volumes I-III are the complete set of the stunning and meticulous work that Brad Blodget and Dick Richards have done, chronicling the mostly by-gone railroads of the Monadnock Region of New Hampshire. These three volumes contain more than 1000 images as well as detailed information about every town from Worcester, MA to Concord, NH to Bellows Falls, VT.