Mystery of the Old Red Covered Railroad Bridge - Solved

 By Valerie Britton - Troy's Old Red Covered Railroad Bridge is considered “lost” in the Covered Spans of Yesteryear database because it doesn’t presently exist, BUT it’s location is no longer a mystery.  A “Railroad Bridge,” is one that the train either passes through or underneath. The Old Red Covered Bridge photo clearly showed a road through the bridge, which meant the train passed underneath it.  The very first bridge that came to mind was the rickety old wooden bridge that was located just past the Webster residence on the road to Marlborough.  The Lawrence family called it “Thunder Bridge” because whenever a car went over it sounded like thunder.  Because this particular bridge wasn’t a covered bridge, I kept researching and taking hikes along the railroad bed with Jennifer Adams Ralph Wentworth and Gerry Decatur.

After the lost bridge article appeared in the TTN phone calls filtered in.  Most thought it was the old Thunder Bridge with the roof removed.  Finally, I got the call from Irene Tucker that I had been waiting for.  Irene’s family owned a bakery when she was little and she rode along with her father when he delivered baked goods around town.  She remembers going through a covered bridge on the road to Marlborough!  Since Irene was young at the time she wanted me to make certain before I relied solely on her word.  I contacted Senator Kelly to see if the NH Senate Research Department could help. They supplied me with photographs of maps of every single railroad culvert&bridge, beginning at the Fitzwilliam/Troy town line and ending at the Troy/ Marlborough line.  These maps revealed that Troy had three wooden overhead bridges.  The High Street Bridge, the North Main Street overpass and another one near the Troy/Marlborough town line.  These maps established that the third bridge #402 on the Marlborough Road had to be Old Red Covered Bridge.

Some confusion came from the directions that the bridge was 2 miles off the road to Keene.  However, in the 1800’s the road to Keene started at the split by the Minute Mart and connected back onto Route 12.  To make matters more complicated, the 1858 map revealed that the break off to Marlborough Road from the Old Keene Road began at a different location.  Jennifer and I verified its previous location, which is now located on private property, and the landscape fit.  At some unknown point in time, the Old Red Covered Bridge was removed and replaced with Thunder Bridge on a new straighter section of the road and they lengthened the bridge by 27 more feet. Thunder Bridge was removed on August 7th, 1982.  Troy also had another wooden covered bridge! Jennifer found reference to a private one located near the Route 12 ledges.

Thank you to all of those who shared your opinions.  Special thanks to Jennifer Adams, Ralph Wentworth, Irene Tucker, Gerry Decatur, Senator Kelly, the NH Senate Research Department, and especially Bill Caswell from Computer Aided Drafting/Design at NH DOT, who was my very first contact and supplied me valuable photos and information throughout the discovery process.