Significant Railroad Clean-Up Underway In Manchester

MANCHESTER, NH - Workers are working on cleaning up the railroad tracks in downtown Manchester where several people have been living.

For several months as homeless individuals have been displaced from larger encampments, they have migrated to less visible locations.

The area adjacent to the tracks located behind Firestone, and Market Basket have been popular gathering points due to resources that are close by.

Manchester Fire, police, and AMR ambulance have responded to overdoses, fires, and deaths along the tracks in recent months.

The Manchester Fire Department Community Outreach notified people living in the area that they must vacate the area and were trespassing on private property.

The area is overseen by Rail Road Police which has a very limited number of officers in New England.

Manchester Police Sergeant Emmett MacKen, the Community Policing Supervisor said that he works closely with the railroad police and they are very responsive.

A Manchester police officer who uses a side-by-side vehicle to access the area found an abandoned vehicle with Massachusetts plates and had it removed. It appeared people were living in and around the vehicle.

Workers from CSX, Scrap-It, and other contractors are working on removing old equipment, tracks, garbage, and any debris.

Workers used torches to cut a box car into pieces and remove it in large dump trucks.

Hundreds of cans and litter were gathered in multiple bags and hauled away by contractors.

Old electrical boxes and structures that have served as sheltered places for individuals are being removed. These same structures have been the site of multiple fires.

The clean-up process is expected to take several weeks.

©Jeffrey Hastings www.Manchesterinformation.com LLC