The Money Train’s Second Stop

If you pay tolls, buy gas, register a vehicle, or simply use New Hampshire roads without launching yourself into a ditch, this story is your business.

Because this is not really just about a trail.

It is about how transportation projects get pushed, where public money gets lined up, and how the same few names can appear around the map, the funding, the parking, and the “economic opportunity” like they are collecting Monopoly railroads and calling it public service.

The Parcel

In documents shared with me, the New Hampshire Department of Transportation sought approval in 2021 to sell roughly an acre of the state-owned Conway Branch Railroad Corridor in Ossipee to Mark McConkey for $8,000 plus a $1,100 administrative fee.

The DOT explanation said McConkey requested the parcel to deal with existing parking and access issues affecting, or potentially affecting, planned improvements on his abutting private property.

Put plainly: before the public ever got its big rail-trail sales pitch, a piece of the state-owned corridor was already being transferred to a politically connected abutter because of parking and access tied to his own property.

A trail for the people is one thing. A trail that just happens to solve parking and access issues next door is something a little more magical.

The Push

Then came the state-side push.

In 2024, HB 1468 directed DOT to work with state and local entities on the best use of the Conway Branch corridor. The bill was sponsored by Jonathan Smith and co-sponsored by Mark McConkey.

Around that same time, the Governor’s transmittal letter for the 2025–2034 Ten Year Transportation Improvement Plan was addressed to Mark McConkey in his role on the House Public Works and Highways side, and Lakes Region Planning Commission records show that regional transportation bodies participate in the Ten-Year-Plan process and list McConkey as a Freedom commissioner.

So no, this was not a guy accidentally tripping over a railroad tie and landing in the middle of transportation planning.

This was a man with property tied to the corridor, involved in the broader transportation and planning lanes, while also helping push the very project that could increase the usefulness of that corridor.

Just your standard New Hampshire small-government moment, where “coincidence” apparently has a full-time job and benefits.

The Sales Pitch

Before the Transfer

By 2024, town-side committees were already treating the rail trail like an active civic project.

Ossipee’s own reports said the Economic Development Council had been investigating the corridor for years, had received notice of recreational winter use, and wanted to keep working toward broader non-motorized use. Town-side minutes in 2024 show rail-trail hearings being discussed and the project being promoted as part of the town’s future.

In other words, before the corridor transfer was even finalized, the sales brochure was already getting printed in everyone’s imagination.

The trail was still on paper, but the optimism had already laced up its sneakers.

The Parking Pivot

Then Jonathan Smith said the quiet part out loud.

In May 2024 planning minutes, Smith told the board that the rail trail was likely going to happen, that Center Ossipee would be the starting point, that it would be a “huge economic drive” for the area, and that the trail was the “driving force for parking.”

And what parking was he talking about?

The plan to demolish 15 Moultonville Road, the Main Street building, to create about 20 public parking spaces.

So the picture gets pretty crisp: one parking-and-access location tied to a McConkey corridor parcel, another public parking push tied to the former Main Street building, and the same rail-trail project floating over both like a halo made of grant applications.

That is not just planning.

That is municipal choreography.

“Come visit downtown. We removed part of downtown so you can park for it.”

The Money Talk

By December 2024, the money talk got even less bashful.

Budget Committee minutes show Smith saying that he, Executive Councilor Kenney, and Mark McConkey worked on the bill in Concord, that NHDOT had agreed to surrender the corridor to DNCR, and that the trail would be the “biggest economic boom for the downtown area.”

He also said “the grant is a separate avenue” and explained that Ossipee’s local money commitment would show the state the town was serious.

Translation: the trail was not just being sold as recreation. It was being packaged as an economic-development tool, with public funding lined up to make the case stronger.

Which is fine, in the same way it is fine when somebody says they bought the boat “for fishing” and then you realize the boat has mood lighting, a sound system, and a better interior than your living room.

The Train Leaves the Station

Then the money train left the station.

In March 2025, Ossipee voters approved $25,000 to create a Rail Trail fund.

In April 2025, the town announced the corridor had officially been transferred from NHDOT to DNCR and said this would let the town and Friends of Rail Trail begin pursuing grants and funding sources. The town added that this “would not have happened without the full support of Senator McConkey.”

In June 2025, the first Conway Advisory Committee minutes show Senator McConkey pressing for access sooner, while the town said it was willing to put money forth and the committee discussed grant paths including a Transportation Alternatives Program request of about $1.2 million.

That is not a coincidence.

That is a project maturing exactly the way politically useful transportation projects mature: study first, funding lane next, public enthusiasm third, access and property consequences last.

Or, more simply:

first comes the vision,

then comes the grant,

then comes the ribbon cutting,

then comes the very reasonable question nobody was supposed to ask.

The Familiar Cast Problem

And because New Hampshire is a small state where the cast list likes reruns, there is another name worth noticing.

McConkey’s campaign website lists Vincent Vaccaro as the campaign’s filing/contact line at the same Freedom address provided, and the property card shared places a Vaccaro-linked Route 16 property in the same general corridor and traffic orbit.

I have not independently verified every ownership detail of that Route 16 piece from public sources here, so there is no need to embroider the point with extra lace.

The point is simpler than that.

When campaign contacts, corridor parcels, Main Street parking, and transportation planning all start showing up in the same neighborhood, the public does not need a corkboard and red string.

They just need eyes.

The Real Question

None of this, by itself, proves a crime.

It does prove something else:

The public is entitled to ask whether a rail trail is being planned for the common good, or whether it is also being used to quietly improve access, visibility, traffic flow, and property advantage for people already close to the levers of power.

Because once a public trail becomes an economic-development engine, parking strategy, grant magnet, and property-value enhancer all at once, it is no longer just a trail.

It is a route.

And in Ossipee, it increasingly looks like the route is not just for hikers.

It is for the money train.