Londonderry Trailways Clears Major Milestone

A huge milestone was passed this month in the effort to make the railroad trails in Londonderry more accessible for recreational use.

According to Londonderry Trailways President Bob Saur, dozens of volunteers worked over two days to clear an area if trails near the Exit 5 area.

“This is the last section we haven’t cleared, so basically all of the trail is walkable at this point,” Saur said.

He added that the work was pretty much done by hand. Some sections elsewhere on the trail are fairly clean, but work still needed to be completed on that area.

The effort is part of a long-term goal for the Londonderry trail to be paved similar to the work done in Windham.

Londonderry Trailways was recently awarded a $25,000 New Hampshire Recreational Trail Program grant in September for work on the trail, and Saur said that additional grants would determine when paving would take place.

“We hope to have the first paving done within the next few years,” he said.

To get rid of some of the gullies, grading started last week on the trail in a 3.5-mile section from North School down to Interstate 93 to Rockingham Road. The grant money is funding that work.

The clearing in the north part of town is just one of many efforts by the organization to work on the rail paths.

Last year, Saur said that over 700 tires were cleared out of different sections, most dating back over two or three decades.

The attached video, courtesy of the Londonderry Trailways website, shows a ride in August 2012 from the Park and Ride lot at Exit 5 to Londonderry’s North School.