Steaming past Bartlett Roundhouse. Locals gather to grab cell-phone pics as former Canadian National Switcher #7470 brings her "Steam in the Snow" photo extra past one of the few relics of the steam era that still remains on the old Maine Central Mountain Division - The old Bartlett Roundhouse. Built in 1873, the 6-stall Bartlett Roundhouse was the centerpiece of a yard complex built to house and service pusher engines on the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad in the White Mountains. The P&O was later acquired by the Maine Central and the facility served that line for the rest of its working life. The little yard not only had this roundhouse, but also a multitude of tracks, a wooden water tower, a coaling facility, a turntable and a wye. The engines housed here assisted heavy freights on the steep, westbound climb through Crawford Notch, near Mt. Washington. Old photos depict beefy 2-8-0s, 4-6-0s and even several compound 2-6-6-2s. The latter were too large to fit on the turntable, so that facility was later removed. Locomotives at this yard were primarily turned on a wye and most legacy photos do not depict a turntable in front of the roundhouse.
After the Maine Central scrapped its steam engines, 2 of the original 6 stalls were removed, along with some of the other structures such as the water tank. The roundhouse was abandoned in 1958 and became property of the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. It was used by highway crews to store rock salt for many years and it gradually deteriorated. In 2008, a local grass-roots effort was mounted to save this structure. The Bartlett Roundhouse Preservation Society has worked to get the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places and the State of New Hampshire has agree to cooperate with their efforts to find grants to stabilize and restore the building. In addition a couple of pieces of original Maine Central rolling stock have been acquired for display here. The wooden snow plow on the left and the outside-braced wooden boxcar behind it both share the single remaining track that still leads to the facility.
