Piscataquog rail trail

Community walks highlight rail trails: the Piscataquog and Goffstown trails

/ Ellen Kolb / Leave a comment

Among the treats of this season in southern New Hampshire have been community walks organized by municipal agencies. The Manchester Police Department and Goffstown Parks and Recreation have been leading popular events on local rail trails. I joined a few of them, and saw for myself how important the trails have become to local residents.

Both of these programs were free of charge when I attended, and both were held on weekday mornings,

Big turnout for Manchester Senior Walks

Senior walkers cross the Hands Across the Merrimack bridge in Manchester NH along the Piscataquog trail. All photos by Ellen Kolb.

I learned via social media about weekly springtime Senior Walks offered by the Manchester Police Department’s Community Affairs officers. When I showed up for one along the Piscataquog rail trail, I was surprised to find over a hundred people ready for the morning’s outing! The crowd was even larger for a walk later in the season on the Rockingham Recreational Trail.

The Senior Walks program was new to me, but clearly it was well-known to many Queen City residents. Each walk lasted for an hour, with a 30-minute turn-around time. No rush: walkers were self-paced, and simply turned around at the 30-minute mark, no matter how far they’d gone. Traffic control at road crossings was excellent. The Department’s Mounted Division got into the act, too, with Officer Miano aboard the gentle-but-imposing (16 hands high!) General Stark. A bonus: each walk ended with refreshments provided by local businesses.

For my cross-state project, I wondered about the best way to cross Manchester. These Senior Walks showed me the way: Valley Street with its sidewalks and pedestrian crossing lights let me link the Piscataquog rail trail on the west side of the city and the Rockingham Rec trail on the east side, with just a little jog along side streets at each end.

Near the east end of Manchester’s segment of the Rockingham Recreational Trail, a sign honors former Alderman Pinard, a trail supporter.
Accompanying Senior walk participants was an MPD Mounted Unit team: Officer Miano and General Stark.
A unique work of art adorns the east end of the Piscataquog Trail, paying tribute to the workers at the meatpacking plant that once stood near the site.

A warm welcome in Goffstown

I’m always happy to get out to the well-maintained five-mile-long Goffstown rail trail. The Parks and Recreation department in town has been offering weekly guided walks of varying distances on the trail, and as soon I heard about that, I resolved to join one as soon as my schedule allowed.

When I arrived at the Parks and Rec office on the morning of my chosen walk (the trailheads vary each week), I was welcomed by a small friendly group led by a Parks and Rec staffer. The trail includes two signaled crossings of busy NH Route 114, and I’m always nervous about getting across that road, but the fear factor went down to zero with a dozen people crossing together. (Kind of like being a pedestrian in Boston, now that I think about it.)

Decorated wooden cutout of an old-fashioned train engine on the Goffstown (NH) Rail Trail

Our walk that day was pretty much in the middle segment of the trail. When our group returned to the office, I decided to keep going. I seldom get to the westernmost end of the trail. I was delighted to find that since I was last there, signage has been upgraded significantly for both trail navigation and parking. As I stood at the western end of the trail and looked out at the Piscataquog River and town center, I tried to imagine how the rail line must have looked with its covered rail bridge there once upon a time. The rail bridge is long gone. We’re left with a rail trail that extends all the way to Manchester’s Piscataquog trail, linking the state’s biggest city with its quieter neighbor.

A bench along the Goffstown trail overlooks Namaske Lake.
Goffstown Rail Trail has plenty of signage to guide users.
The west end of the Goffstown Rail Trail offers a view of the town center and the Piscataquog River.

I hope you enjoy this post! You can search this blog for 20 years of essays and trip reports about New Hampshire trails. I welcome your support to get to the next trailhead.

Re-collection: Piscataquog trail therapy

/ Ellen Kolb / 1 Comment

I walk for fun, to explore, to more-or-less exercise. I also walk to keep my head on straight. I wouldn’t have gotten through today without a couple of miles outside.

I’m a political critter, you see. I’ve been a campaign staffer, an activist, a blogger from the New Hampshire State House, to name a few pastimes. Yesterday was election day after the nastiest campaign year I’ve ever experienced. This has been a backed-up-sewer of a season.

Nothing will flush it out except time on the trails.

I had time today for a couple of local miles. Manchester’s Piscataquog rail trail came through for me. There were enough leaves left on the trees to serve as a canopy. The overcast sky suited me; bright sunlight would have left me with a slashing headache.

Forty good minutes: enough time to escape agitation. Time to block out the noise, turn away from the news feeds, take lots of deep breaths, recall what’s important.

A man biked past me. I recognized him as the unofficial adopter of the trail, picking up bags of trash, neatly hanging fresh plastic bags every hundred yards or so. Seeing him was oddly consoling and reassuring. He has a simple, selfless volunteer’s dedication to an unsung job that consists of keeping a public area pretty.

Beat that, candidates.

Decompression is going to take awhile. Today’s walk was a good start.

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Piscataquog trail, in another season.

 

At last, Manchester-Goffstown rail trail link completed

/ Ellen Kolb

New Hampshire’s Piscataquog Rail Trail finally reaches across the Piscataquog River, connecting Manchester with Goffstown. I put off some workday tasks long enough to walk the trail from its east end all the way across the new bridge. With all due respect and gratitude to the many people who made the project happen, I didn’t stay for the ribbon-cutting and speechifyin’. Trails are for walking.

pedestrian bridge over a river, blue sky, autumn foliage
On the Manchester side, looking toward Goffstown, at long last. Ellen Kolb photos.
unpaved shaded rail trail
On the Goffstown side.
granite bench etched with "welcome" and placed trailside
I call this right neighborly.
Pedestrian bridge next to bright-red autumn foliage.
Second Street bridge, near east end of Piscataquog Rail Trail.
Merrimack River, deep blue water, with Manchester (NH) skyline
The Queen City: Manchester, New Hampshire, seen from the Hands Across the Merrimack bike/ped bridge.
The Singer family is behind many philanthropic efforts in the Manchester area. Their generosity helped to complete the bridge project.

Over the Merrimack River on the Piscataquog Trail

/ Ellen Kolb

I was early for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats game a few days ago (that’s baseball, for all you out-of-towners). It’s been too long since my last stroll over the Hands Across the Merrimack bridge, part of the rail trail that begins behind the baseball stadium and extends a couple of miles west along the Piscataquog river, clear over to West Side Arena.

The Hands Across the Merrimack bridge over the Merrimack River, seen from the trail behind Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.
The Hands Across the Merrimack bridge over the Merrimack River, seen from the trail behind Northeast Delta Dental Stadium.

The odd bit of graffiti aside, the bridge is in good shape structurally and aesthetically. And for crossing the Merrimack river, it sure beats dodging the auto traffic on the nearby Granite Street bridge.

Manchester, New Hampshire
Manchester, New Hampshire
View from the west end.
View from the west end.
It's good to see this acknowledgment of one of the people who made the Hands Across the Merrimack bridge project happen.
It’s good to see this acknowledgment of one of the people who made the Hands Across the Merrimack bridge project happen.

Hands Across the Merrimack (and Manchester)

/ Ellen Kolb / 3 Comments
rail trail bridge over Merrimack River in Manchester New Hampshire
The Hands Across the Merrimack bridge, where the Piscataquog Rail Trail crosses the Merrimack River in Manchester NH.

(Update: see my December 2025 report about the Piscataquog Trail.)

It took a whole lot of people, headed by Manchester resident Helen Closson, to make a pedestrian bridge out of the abandoned rail bridge across the Merrimack River in Manchester, New Hampshire. Closson called the project “Hands Across the Merrimack” while it was underway, and whatever name the pedestrian bridge may be given officially, that’s the name I’ll remember.

I’ve been on the bridge before, just for the fun of crossing over the Merrimack on foot. Today, after some business in town, I took advantage of the sunny afternoon to walk the rail trail clear across Manchester’s West Side. This is Manchester we’re talking about, so “clear across” means about two miles.

Starting from the baseball stadium where the Fisher Cats play on the river’s east side, a paved walkway runs parallel to the Merrimack and shortly comes to a fork. Going right would have brought me under the rail trail and onto some private property. Going left brought me around a sweeping curve to the approach of the Hands Across the Merrimack bridge.

I was a bit startled to find a sculpture of a steer just short of the bridge. The plaque mounted nearby noted that the statue was a tribute to workers & entrepreneurs like the ones from the former JacPac meat processing plant located nearby, now the site of a hospital expansion.

Vandalism has become an issue along the trail, judging from some news reports I’ve read. It looked good today, though. I’m sure that’s an ongoing effort by people who care. The trail is paved its entire length, and the pavement’s in good shape.

The bridge is at the southeast end of a trail that parallels the Piscataquog River. For now, the northwest end of the trail is near what I call the Kelley Street bridge (Nazaire Biron Bridge on my map) that links the West Side with the Pinardville neighborhood. There’s a very hazardous crosswalk on Main Street, but the few other road crossings are in quiet neighborhoods. The trail, like the rail line before it, goes on a bridge over Second Street, avoiding a road that’s just as busy as Main Street.

The Piscataquog River snuck up on me. I cleared Main Street & followed the trail behind a house where there was a cheerfully noisy party going on. As the music from the party faded behind me, I became conscious of the river’s sound, and soon the river was in view. A few weeks ago, we had heavy rains, and this river was particularly pesky for the people living along it. Today, though, it was a tame & pretty thing. Several dirt trails ran steeply from the trail down to the river. I stayed on the pavement, worried that I’d twist an ankle trying to negotiate the slope in my sneakers.

Eventually, I came to some ball fields, where a softball game was just wrapping up. Soon I was in sight of the ugly red bulk of West Side Arena. The building’s homely appearance belies its worth as an athletic facility for what seems like every kid on the West Side. Soon I passed under the Kelley Street Bridge and reached what is now the end of the trail.

Once upon a time, this rail line crossed the Piscataquog near Kelley Street, and then paralleled the river (on its north side now) through Goffstown & into New Boston. Patches of the line have been developed into trails. I’ve been on one segment in New Boston near where the middle & south branches of the Piscataquog converge — a beautiful spot. In Goffstown, determined residents have turned part of the old railbed into a trail, and they continue to try to finish the link between New Boston & Manchester.

[Update, 2015: that link, a bridge over the Piscataquog River, was completed in 2015. Trail users can go from Manchester’s baseball stadium all the way to Goffstown center.]

For now, though, all I saw after crossing under Kelley Street was a fenced-off trestle hung with “Keep Off” signs. I suspect that tight municipal budgets and concerns about liability will keep that trestle from ever being turned into a pedestrian bridge. Of course, that’s what I used to think about the bridge across the Merrimack. [Update: five years after I wrote this, the Piscataquog River trestle was indeed rebuilt, thanks in part to the generosity of the Singer family.]

This is not a path I would take after dark. I have no problem visiting on a weekend afternoon in broad daylight.

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