Rich's PedalPoint: June 2021

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Portland Airline Trail

Although I had ridden the main Airline Trail from East Hampton to Willimantic way back in 2016, this trail section was recently built since then and I was curious...

note the embankments

Entrance

There was a climb to get to the Rail Trail. At the top of the climb, I turned left and headed westward. It was short as it dead ended in a only a few minutes...

I turned around and rode the whole trail eastward. There were a few kiosks along the way explaining the trail's railroad history.

Beautiful stone arch!

Short Video of Ride Highlights

Rail racks...

Cobalt was/is a small town. Why the name Cobalt? Cobalt ore was mined here way back when...

The station location

Bummer - end of the trail

This warrants a return on the mountain to explore further...

The ride back was sweet - loved this rock cut!!

A view where the power lines crossed.

For further details on the railroad history of the "Airline Route", refer to the links at the bottom of my 2016 ride:

The Airline Trail - May 20, 2016

Sunday, June 13, 2021

What an awesome ride - the scenery is magnificent! I started the ride in Manchester and went to a little past the Bolton Notch where I turned around and returned. Kudos to the Towns of Vernon and Manchester for all the wonderful kiosks detailing the railroad history - everything was super informative and a pleasure to see such a tribute to the history of this trail.

Manchester - where I start my ride

It was great to see the rails preserved here!

Remnants of a telegraph pole

All the kiosks were great! :-)

Some stretches of the trail had ties still (on the side!)

Dobson Mills

The Dobson Mills were a short downhill walk off the trail

You could barely see the falls from here

The ravine was gorgeous!

The Falls

Short Video (includes footage all the way to The Notch)

At the former Vernon Depot Area

There was a big yard here including a turntable. Kiosks were once again marvelous!

Yep - that's the remains of the turntable!

The parking lot was full at the Vernon Depot Area -locals know the railroad history!

Onward to the Notch!

Rail racks

Ah yes - there were plenty of these telegraph poles still standing!

There were long stretch of tall embankments

A road tunnel below!

Google Street view!

I love rock cuts and there were plenty to enjoy riding through!

I stopped for a nice chat with two lovely ladies here - we chatted about our mutual fondness for finding old foundations and mill ruins, etc. They sent me off with a mouthful of wasabi coated almonds - mmm mm good!