Like many rural communities, the railroad brought change to North Reading, providing a means to transport freight to and from the large mills in Lawrence and Lowell and introducing a way for passengers to travel far beyond their town. The railroad came to North Reading in 1850 and joined South Danvers (now Peabody) to Tewksbury where it connected to the Lowell mills via the “Lowell and Lawrence Railroad.” The “Boston and Maine Railroad” took over the line in 1887. Passenger service along the route ended in 1932. Freight service between North Reading and Wilmington ended in 1935. All that remains today are portions of the railway bed that can be seen in some of the lower lying areas. This cache is hidden along one of these abandoned railway beds.
The posted coordinates will get you to the parking area. Answering a few railroad related trivia questions will provide some coodinates that will take you on a short walk along the railway bed to the final, which is a small camouflaged canister. The original container was also the home of the NR RR Resident Geocoin. It disappeared when the original container went missing..
No need to get wet, fly, or risk life and limb to reach the final.
The final is located at: N 42 34.ABC W 071 0D.EFG
*** But remember I moved it, so to these coordinates you will have to subtract .003 from the North coordinates and subtract .009 from the West coordinates. Or project a waypoint 48.5' at anangle of 112° True. ***
1. The longest concrete and steel railroad bridge in the US is the Huey P. Long Bridge over the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The rail portion of this bridge is over “E” miles long with a longest span of “790” feet. This bridge was opened in “B9A5”. For a Google Earth image of the bridge, plug in N 29 56.650, W 90 10.133.
2. The first railway company to build and operate a railroad in the US was the “Granite Railway” in Quincy, MA, transporting granite slabs from the quarries to docks on the Neponset River. Granite from these quarries was used to build the Bunker Hill Monument. This railroad was built in “182F”. (You may be interested in the Earthcache "First Railway in America" GC1EQV4)
3. The Mount Washington Cog Railway has been climbing to the summit of Mt Washington since July 3, 18G9. The steepest portion of the track is a trestle called “Jacob’s Ladder” and has a maximum gradient of “37” degrees.
4. The "Standard" Railway gauge (distance between the rails) adopted by the US in 18C6 is 4 feet, C.D inches. One theory has this distance being based on the grooves made in roads by the war chariots of Imperial Rome.
The "B" Box" cache is located along this same railbed a little further to the east in Ipswich River Park.
Congratulations to Poochi_5 Pack for a well earned midnight FTF!!
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.