ABANDONED TRAILS OF ACADIA NATIONAL PARK: THE GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILROAD TRAIL

The Green Mountain Railroad Trail is not, nor has it ever been an official hiking trail. Once the Green Mountain Railway Company went out of business, locals adopted the route the cog train followed as an unofficial hiking trail, and for a good number of years after that many sought to retrace the route the train once took on its daily trips from the shore of Eagle Lake to the summit of Green Mountain, renamed Cadillac Mountain years later.
As the years went by the route became more over-grown and fewer people hiked it and in time, only a few people knew the exact route the train once followed. Adding to the difficulty was a book which was published which gave out the wrong instructions to the site. The author of that book simply made a mistake and directed readers to the wrong pull over.
I assume anyone wanting to hike the route may want to start at the beginning, so I will start off with where the train tracks began by the shore of the lake.
I like to arrive at the general area by beginning at the Bubble Pond parking area, at the carriage road you will see a locked gage and the Park Loop Road beyond, cross the Park Loop Road and follow the Eagle Lake Carriage road until you come to an intersection, go right and follow it until you come to a wooden bridge with railings, this is your starting point.
Ahead and to the left you can see its pretty open with view of the lake, in that area is a thin stretch of land that goes outward onto the lake, that is where the main tracks began, an inward area to the left of that stretch of land is where another section of tracks ran to the water, and inbetween was a pier and buildings. I have not been able to find any railroad spikes in that area, but if you look at the map, you will see that thin strip of land was the starting point.
From their the train crossed the carriage road at an angle and went on to cross the brook which passes under that wooden bridge with the railings. In one account it clearly states "as the train started out, it crossed over a body of water," that being the brook. Where the train crossed the brook is a ledge that others have referred to as a small water fall, and indeed after a good rain water does rush down ofer it, the train crossed at a sharp angle in front of that small water fall, and now your journey begins.

LEDGE OR SMALL WATERFALL
GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILROAD TRAIL - ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

From that wooden bridge, with the lake to your back, walk up the right hand side of the brook until you come to that tiny waterfall area, and not far to the right look for the start of a small gully running upward and at a right angle into the woods, in my trips there is always a large fallen tree I have to cross to reach the gully. The further you follow the gully, the more defined and wider it becomes, keep an eye out for those first few railroad spikes sticking up out of the granite along the gully, the further along you go the more spikes you will see along the way.
Just before the gully reaches the Park Loop Road, a worn path exits the gully and continues up toward the roadway, follow it to the small pullover straight ahead.
Now that you have hiked the lower section of the route the train took, and arrived at the small pull over, I will stop here to give instructions to anyone who wishes to simply hike the upper section. The instructions to the correct pull over are simple, if your driving along the Park Loop Road, you want to drive past the entrance to the Cadillac Mountain Summit Road and begin to look for a pull over up ahead on the right as your headed in the direction of Bubble Pond and Jordan Pond, that will be pull over number 1, continue past it and you will be going downhill, keep a sharp eye out for a tiny pull over on the right, easy to miss, park there.
If your coming from the other direction, you want to drive past Bubble Pond and round a sharp curve, and as your driving uphill look for the tiny pull over on the left, park there.

RAILROAD SPIKE - GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILROAD TRAIL
ACADIA NATIONAL PARK

Now your upper journey begins, looking directly across the road from about the center of that pull over you will see an opening in the woods, cross the road and walk up the banking, moving along the path to the left, there will be your first railroad spike, usually has one or two rocks by it. This is the point where many have trouble, at that spike, with your back towards the road, you want to walk straight ahead and upward through the woods, the ground looks a bit worn like maybe a dried out brook. The further ahead you go the more defined the trail gets. Sometimes you will see a few rock piles to help guide you. If you come to an area where the trail seems to stop, remember this rule, move straight ahead, and just beyond a tree or brush the trail appears again. I have not been to the area in some time, but a fellow hiker did tell me some one blazed the entire route, if that is true, it should be much easier to follow, however blazing or marking abandoned trails is illegal.
Not far ahead you come to the first real gem along the hike, a good section of built up railroad bed which once helped support the train tracks. This begins to follow a wall of rocks to the left before the route truns slightly and makes its way up through the woods again, but at this point you usually find more rock piles as well as those railroad spikes begin to show up, sticking 8 to 12 inches up out of the granite. It is worth noting that from this point forward you may run into some pretty slippery areas, as a nearby brook over flows its banks, making some areas of open granite very slippery.

built up section of rail bed

From here onward the railroad spikes will pretty much lead you upward to that one last remaining section of rail which remains on the mountain side.

Green Mountain Railroad - Acadia National Park

You will also begin to see small piles of rusting railroad spikes and many more spikes sticking up out of the granite. At some point the spikes stop and you are left following a worn path that suddenly ends at a thicker section of woods, remember the rule when the path seems to end, walk straight ahead, you will not have to go far before you come to a banking and the Cadillac Mountain Summit Road, to return back to the pull over follow the road downward to the left, when it comes to the Park Loop Road, go left and follow it to the second pull over.
If you want to go to the summit of Cadillac Mountain, go right upward,you don't have too far to go to reach it.
At this point you may be wondering, was this where the train tracks ended? No, they continued directly across the roadway, but there really isn't much more to follow and the brush and turran is a bit hostile to the arms and legs, so i always end the hike here, than relax on the summit before heading back, taking some nice photos of the setting sun as I go.
At some point I am going to do one more good walkthrough and take GPS numbers at any trouble spots and post those to serve as an additional guide.
The part of hiking this trail that amazes me to this day is as you hike along the route, even now you come to these tunnels through the trees where the cog train once passed along, and you can image the train still slowly making its way up the mountain side.

GREEN MOUNTAIN
RAILROAD TRAIL
(Lower Section)

Wooden Bridge by Lake
latitude 44 21' 32"N
longitude 68 14' 42"W
Shallow Gully begins
latitude 44 21' 33"N
longitude 68 14' 39"W
half way point
latitude 44 21' 33"N
longitude 68 14' 35"W
Pull Over
latitude 44 21' 33"N
longitude 68 14' 29"W