Old Colony Rail Trail

Old Colony Rail Trail
Old Colony Rail Trail
	The Bike Rotary in Harwich
Location	Barnstable County
Trailheads	Bike Rotary, Cape Cod Rail Trail, Harwich; Crowell Road, Chatham
Use	Hiking, bicycling, horseback riding, roller blading, and cross country skiing
Hiking details
Trail difficulty	Easy
Season	year-round
Hazards	deer ticks; poison ivy; road crossings
Surface	Paved surface
Right of way	former railroad line
Massachusetts
	Location in Massachusetts

Another view of the rotary

The Old Colony Rail Trail is a paved rail trail located in Harwich and Chatham, Massachusetts. It occupies the Old Colony Railroad's abandoned Chatham Branch railroad right-of-way. Most of the trail follows roughly the path of the old railbed, except for deviations around the Chatham Municipal Airport and a utility yard in Harwich. Its west end connects to the Cape Cod Rail Trail in Harwich at a bike rotary.

Although largely built to modern bike path standards, the trail has certain elements potentially dangerous to cyclists. Several road crossings have tight corners and limited sightlines, while others are poorly marked or have too-closely-spaced bollards.^[1] The trail also includes several on-street sections without separate bike lanes, including on the relatively busy George Ryder Road in Chatham.^[1]

Crossings[]

The whole trail is in Barnstable County, Massachusetts.

Town	Crossing	Notes
Harwich	Cape Cod Rail Trail	Western Terminus
	Island Pond Rd.
	Route 124
	Woodbine Ln.
	Meadow Ln.
	Oak St.
	Colbys Ln.
	Route 39
	Depot Rd.
	Morton Rd.
Chatham	Route 137
	Huckleberry Ln.
	Sam Ryder Rd.
	George Ryder Rd.	overlap
	Wilfred Rd.	overlap
	Old Queen Anne Rd.
	Stepping Stones Rd.	(twice in a row)
	Crowell Rd.	Eastern Teminus