New Page 1

All pictures are taken facing southward unless otherwise noted. Ordered from northern most to southern most.

I accessed the old grade from on top of the mountain. I hiked down along a streambed. I did not think that I could access the old grade from the Harriman station side. How wrong I was! Turns out there is a public ski trail on the old grade. You can access the trail from near Harriman Station. I did not find any parking, but that can be improvised easily.

[Click to enlarge]

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The Catamount X-C trail symbol. This trail apparently goes through the entire state of Vermont.

Looking north behind Harriman station. The trail seen before you is the old grade.

Ventilation tower behind Harriman Station. Water is piped from the reservoir several miles upstream to this tower and then to the turbines in the station.

Harriman Station.

More Harriman station. This power plant is by the way 15 MW.

Looking at the mangled rail grade behind Harriman Station.

An exciting find! Old ties and yes, even rail. This doesn't appear to be in line with the grade however, perhaps it is an old siding? I suspect the rail grade was modified a lot behind here.

The old bit of rail.

Old grade. To the left is a new road which leads to a gravel pit. This road appears to be built up on parts of the old grade.

I am standing on the new road looking down at the old grade. Notice the old pipe. The new road has a newer bigger pipe.

The new road.

Entering the gravel pit. This pit destroyed any bit of rail grade that once may have passed through.

Leaving the gravel pit.

Looking north back at the ventilation tower and the gravel pit.

Heading southward.

Another view looking back at the ventilation tower.

This is where things got very very odd. The retaining wall in the center was part of an old house foundation. Apparently an old road used to lead down here (the road continued from and went around Harriman Station). After this house I found a whole slew of old factory foundations! I moved my factory exploration to another page for clarity. This area is right next to the stream I followed to get to the rail grade. As you can imagine I was quite shocked to find all these factory foundations in the woods, especially since I came upon them before I came upon the rail grade. I am still not sure what these factories were for or when they closed, but I'll wager they were part of the Deerfield paper company!