Eight miles of rail trail will be completed between Keene and Troy by the end of the year — a benefit both to public health and economic growth, rail trail advocates said.

The state’s mountains and rivers offer a variety of outdoor recreation opportunities. And while exploring nature, people tend to work up an appetite, which brings them into towns and cities toward restaurants and other local businesses to spend money.

Bicycling especially is gaining popularity, and not just as a hobby. The spread of the e-bike has made it possible for more older adults to continue cycling, and the U.S. Census Bureau has collected statistics showing more young and lower-income people are biking to work.

Old railroad networks allow cyclists to safely reach their destinations while avoiding busy roads and highways, but in parts of the state, these once-active arteries for tourism and commerce have been almost entirely reclaimed by nature.

Mike Kowalczyk, president of the nonprofit Monadnock Region Rail Trail Collaborative, said it costs between $100,000 and $120,000 to rehabilitate a mile of rail trail.

“That’s not for any major work, like a bridge that needs to be put in, or a culvert rebuilt, or anything like that. It’s what probably most people would call ‘maintenance,’ but pretty significant maintenance,” Kowalczyk said.

Swanzey recently used a $740,000 federal grant to cut a path through the woods to reclaim a previously “impenetrable” 4-mile stretch of the Cheshire Rail Trail between Keene and Marlborough, Kowalczyk said.

And that was just for a hard-packed dirt road.

Paving and installing bridges is much more expensive. A planned half-mile paved extension of the Londonderry Rail Trail will cost $640,000.

Trails as revenue sources

The University of New Hampshire studied nine of the state’s 27 rail trails in 2021, asking about 250 trail users where they were from and how long they planned to visit the area, if applicable.

Researchers concluded that visits to nine rail trails generated about $18.7 million in economic contributions, $2.7 million in tax revenue and supported 164 jobs a year.

Those numbers aren’t out of line compared with other states, either. The Erie Canalway Trail in New York generates an estimated $253 million in annual economic impacts, with 1.6 million visitors per year.

In the UNH study, out-of-state visitors were the minority at about 15% of respondents, but they put much more into the local economy, spending three times as much as residents.

In the Monadnock region, several cyclists said they entered the valley from out of state through a seasonal bike ferry on the opposite side of the Connecticut River in Vermont.

Chuck Redfern, who co-founded another nonprofit, Pathways for Keene, said a healthy trail system adds value to homes and local businesses who serve these visitors.

“Realtors have reported that it will increase the value of a home between 3 and 5% by being next to a rail trail,” Redfern said, citing Rails-to-Trails Conservancy research.

Keene is currently working on a roughly three-quarter-mile trail extension, which city officials said will be completed in October, linking the paved bike paths in the city to the Cheshire Rail Trail into Swanzey.

Redfern said this work will cost more than $2 million, with most costs covered by the federal government through an 80-20 grant. The remaining amount was split evenly between the city and donations gathered by Pathways for Keene.

This includes a trail made with crushed stone dust, which is cheaper than pavement, and three bridges that will allow bike and foot traffic to safely cross busy Route 101, Redfern said.

Instead of building entirely new overpasses, the city is reusing three historic bridges to save money. One will be a steel rigid-frame bridge that spanned across Interstate 93 in Londonderry between Exits 4 and 5 until it was dismantled when the highway was widened in 2019.

Preserving local history

In some communities, the rail trail also attracts local history and train enthusiasts. Relatively few signs of the old railroad days remain, with far fewer in restored condition, but volunteers in Troy have rehabilitated its train depot as it would have appeared in the 1950s. The depot itself is 179 years old.

The group even acquired an old Boston and Maine Railroad rail car. Troy Historical Society Chair Kim Chaffee said they purchased the car three years ago and have gradually restored it to its original condition. She said moving the car back to Troy and restoring it cost up to $150,000, all through donations and fundraising.

Chaffee said local volunteer efforts to rehabilitate the depot and train have attracted significant visits from locals, railroad enthusiasts and historians. She said their most popular event is Depot Day, an annual fair scheduled on Oct. 3 this year.

“I’ve been doing this for about nine years now, and I’ve met so many people and heard so many stories. Usually, the first two words out of peoples’ mouths when they come through the door are,’ I remember,’” Chaffee said.

Chaffee said the depot saw significant passenger traffic through the late 1950s as part of tourism to Lake Winnipesaukee in the summer and the White Mountains in the winter. The last official loads that ran through the area were Anheuser-Busch tanks in 1976, she said.

Last week, Kowalczyk invited state economic and rural development officials on a tour of the additions to Cheshire Rail Trail network, culminating in a stop at the railroad depot in Troy. He said the goal of the visit was to highlight some of the economic and cultural benefits.

Kowalczyk said state staff responded positively to their progress and seemed eager to support the Monadnock region trail network’s continued growth, which volunteers want to expand from 40 to 110 miles.

However, Kowalczyk said he really wants to attract Gov. Kelly Ayotte — an avid runner — to the area, hoping to persuade her to support investment in the state’s trails.

“Once you see it yourself, you really get it,” Kowalczyk said.

© 2026 The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.). Visit www.unionleader.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.