Tree Train: NH DOT Expands North Country Rail Capacity, With Help From UNH And Industry Partner
UNH Cooperative Extension is working with the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT) and the Vermont Rail System to reduce the costs of getting lumber to North Country mills, a project that stands to be a significant boon to New Hampshire’s forest products industry.
New Hampshire’s forest industry has long been an anchor industry for the state. Timber taxes are returned directly to municipalities; it is a driver of jobs in rural communities; upstream forestry operations result in downstream manufacturing; the forest industry’s roads and infrastructure provide access for recreation; and it provides essential ecosystem benefits through deliberate forest management.
But despite contributing $1.69 billion to New Hampshire’s economic output and providing myriad other benefits, the state’s forest industry has faced challenges over the last decade. From 2017 to 2023 direct jobs in forest products industries decreased by 17.8%, direct output decreased by 16.6%, and labor income decreased by 5.9%.
A serious challenge New Hampshire forest products manufacturers face is that they must truck to adjacent states to ship or receive rail freight, which is costly and time-consuming. NHDOT, with help from UNH and the Vermont Rail System, has a solution: upgrading the transload station — a location where freight can be transitioned from one mode of transportation to another, such as from truck to rail — at a NHDOT-owned property in Whitefield, New Hampshire. The project will reduce transportation costs for lumber processors and potentially open up access to new markets and create new supply options for forest products manufacturers.
“It is a very challenging industry, and it confronts many of the challenges we see in other manufacturing industries that are competing globally,” says Andy Fast, UNH Extension’s state forest industry specialist. “That is what is exciting about this proactive, strategic, cost-effective transportation infrastructure project that helps the forest industry — it is getting ahead of the next challenge and providing future resilience.”
According to Nicole Bryant, Rail and Transit Bureau administrator for NHDOT, if the project proves successful, it could be used as a model elsewhere in the state.
Funding for the project comes from a federal $1 million Northern Borders Regional Commission grant. To win the grant, interests of the NHDOT had to be coupled with those of partners in rail and lumber industries. Fast, working closely with the NH Division of Forests and Lands, provided needed data and connections to ensure sufficient interest on the part of forest products manufacturers.
To Fast, this example shows what can happen when multiple partners – UNH, the state of New Hampshire, and Vermont Rail – have shared vision and coordinate to pull in the same direction.
NH Lumber Producer Excited About Increased Efficiency, Expanded Markets
Milan Lumber, located in Milan, New Hampshire, is the state’s largest lumber mill, producing about one-fifth of all lumber sold in the Granite State. Jethro Poulin, sales manager for Milan Lumber, says his mill is currently processing Norway spruce grown in New York and shipped by rail to a transload facility in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, nearly 60 miles away from Milan. The mill is currently running four days per week, a reduced schedule due to the challenge of getting logs from the St. Johnsbury transload station to the mill. Poulin said he hopes that the Whitefield transload station, which would be only 35 miles away, will allow the mill to add a fifth production day.
While the benefits of the transload station will mostly be seen on the mill’s supply side, Poulin says that rail access can also help Milan Lumber deliver its finished products to market, particularly further afield as longer truck deliveries can become expensive.
“The transload station will definitely give us more options and open up more markets,” says Poulin.
“This is a great economic development project that can have outsized impact for the forest industry and rural communities over the coming decades,” says Fast, whose role tasks him with finding ways to strengthen the forest products industry. “It was complex but like the most successful projects it reflects authentic collaboration and thoughtful, sustained effort to get it done.”
Though the project is intended to benefit the forest products industry, it could be used to load and unload any manner of freight from rail cars.
Construction is expected to begin in summer of 2026.