MethuenRailTrail

You heard it here first – the MBTA votes to lease the abandoned right of way to the city of Methuen for 99 years.

Thank you to all who helped and supported this effort!
We have a lot more work ahead! please come to the March 8th meeting!

MBTA Agenda item
• Authorization to enter into a Ninety-Nine (99) Year Long Term Lease Agreement with the City of Methuen, the Town of Saugus and the City of Lynn for nominal consideration for the portion of abandoned Manchester and Lawrence Branch Railroad Right of Way in Methuen, Massachusetts consisting of approximately 2 miles, a portion of the abandoned Saugus Branch Right of Way in Saugus consisting of approximately 2.4 miles and a portion of the abandoned Saugus Branch Right of Way in Lynn consisting of approximately 1.8 miles for use as an Alternative Transportation Corridor, a.k.a. Bike Path

1 Hour Cleanup
Sunday, 03 October 2010 at 08:00AM
Union and Railroad St intersection
Cleaning under the Oakland Ave Bridge again
Bring implements of destruction!

Bike/Walk on the Windham Trail
Sunday, 10 October 2010 at 1:00PM
Roulston Road Entrance to the Windham Rail Trail

It’s a bike ride and/or walk. Some will be bringing binoculars. The Windham Trail at that end is about 3 miles long. so it would be a 6+ mile walk both ways. Though it has nice mile markers and you can turn around anytime.

Thanks to all who showed up for our 1 hour cleanup. We sure did get a lot of junk off the trail. And as always thanks to the Vermette family for weedwhacking the last of the tall weeds – now the trail truly can be walked, run or cycled end to end. I hope to see you all at Tuesday’s meeting where we will pick a date for next months’ 1 hour cleanup.

Thank you to all who offered to help. The Spicket River was extra low last Friday and Tim and I just waded in and pulled out the offending materials. And this time we took it to the dump. There is a lot of trash along the banks in spots and hopefully we can keep pulling more out every opportunity.

For now we are going back to cleaning up the Rail Trail itself.
We have a cleanup scheduled for Saturday the 11th at 8 AM – we are meeting at the corner of Union and Rail Road so that we can pull trash out from under the Oakland ave Bridge.

Tomorrow another End to End hike will start at the Salem, NH line and take us down to the Lawrence City Line. Last week’s Hike took about 3.5 hours in total.

Meetup is at 8AM behind the IHOP on Rt 28 in Salem, NH
Bring sturdy shoes, a hat and water, though water will be available.
(if you only want to walk it in one direction, let us know and we can arrange to drop your car the Lawrence end)

Thank you to all who showed up at this month’s meeting. We had a marvelous turnout and covered a lot of things.

We have about 22 paid members now!
Soon we will have a Membership discount set up at Whirlaway Sports, similar to the members discount at Buchikas.

MEETUP: the back of the parking lot at IHOP on Rt 28.
we aren’t sure how long this 2.4 miles will take us.
Average adult walking speed on level surfaces is about 3 miles per hour.
This is not a level surface…yet. The Methuen rail bed is 2.4 miles long.

If anyone who doesn’t want to walk BOTH ways, down to the Lawrence Line and back.
let us know in advance and we can arrange for a ride back from the Granite Ave apt parking lot. Or you can park at Granite ave and we will drive you to IHOP.

We will be scheduling another Windham Rail Trail Group Ride on a weekend in Late September early October.

Thank you all for your support.
Joyce Godsey
President
Methuen Rail Trail Alliance

Tuesday June 13th, 7Pm
Nevins Memorial Library

Don’t forget !
bring a friend!

Tags: cleanup, clearing, Today on the Trail

we only have one…and a homemade one at that…but hopefully by advertising our meetings in more than newspapers, we can draw in the curious and the just plain interested. If people think National Grid is doing all this trail clearing for US, we may as well take advantage of it.