Iron Roads of the Monadnock Region: Three Volume Set

Iron Roads of the Monadnock Region brings to life the story of the now largely-forgotten railroads that once operated in the rugged mountains and valleys of the Monadnock Region of southern New Hampshire, shining new light on the roads’ stories from their beginnings to the present. Seven years in the making, and enriched by over 700 images, maps, and tables, the two volumes of Iron Roads are an essential reference for the serious railfan.

In Volumes I and II of Iron Roads of the Monadnock Region, we presented in considerable detail, the histories of all the railroads—including street railways and quarry railroads—that operated in the Monadnock Region of southwestern New Hampshire and north-central Massachusetts from the 1840s. Mount Monadnock—the Grand Monadnock—in Jaffrey and Dublin, New Hampshire, dominates much of this area for miles around. Here, in Volume III, we present a pictorial of railroad operations in the Monadnock Region that is intended to complement and supplement Volumes I and II.

Although Volume III can be enjoyed as a standalone, all three volumes are written as an integrated whole. This third volume is divided into three parts. Part One includes our selections of images, arranged mostly in the chapter order we followed in Volumes I and II. Where appropriate, we stream images in station order outward from Boston, Worcester, or Springfield. At stations where we have multiple images, we’ve tried to keep them in roughly chronological order. We include thumbnail recaps and route maps of our subject roads to assist readers unfamiliar with the territory and who might not have had the benefit of reading the first two volumes. Part Two contains errata and addenda for the first two volumes. Part Three is an updated and consolidated index for all three volumes—providing the convenience of cross-referencing subject material appearing throughout the work.

Newfound photographic material has allowed us to augment the images we presented in the first two volumes—in some cases quite substantially. We would like to emphasize that the images we present in this pictorial are mostly newly discovered, not images that did not make the cut for Volumes I and II. We are living in a time when large collections of images taken in the 1930–1960 period are being dispersed by their owners or estates. The digitization of additional material, locked away for decades in known collections, is another tributary source of vintage images. The sheer volume of “new” images appearing is remarkable. That said, however, railroad images from the Monadnock Region per se are not particularly common. Trains were always scarcer there and the number of railfans and railroad enthusiast trips into the Region, far fewer.