The White Mountain region was a major tourist destination, but getting to this beautiful area was a long tedious trip by stage coach. A railroad was built to North Conway in 1872 to bring more people in and faster. North Conway was the northern terminus of the line at the time so a beautiful Victorian station was built in North Conway. The Conway branch also gained popularity for its ski trains during the winter but by the 1950's the highway system was taking away much of the business on the line and the line was closed in the 1972.
The Conway Scenic railroad was formed and reopened service to some of the line in 1974. The station and surrounding area including the rail yard have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The yard area is just as it appeared back when it was built, the railroad still uses the original four stalls of the roundhouse and turntable. The Conway Scenic has grown considerably since its creation and now runs three different types of excursions over two different lines all originating at the North Conway Depot.
I was at the Conway Scenic Railroad On September 3 & 4, 1999. I was impressed at the amount of trains this railroad runs. There is pretty much always something moving around in the station area. The station is really nice and helps transport you back in time. I rode one of the lunch trains and it was great, I didn't know what to expect but the food was great and the ride was good too. #7470 was the steam engine in charge of the train the days I was there. The engine is an 0-6-0 built for the Canadian National Railroad. I stayed at the Saco River Camp Ground just outside of North Conway and our site was on the river, the picture below I took in the middle of the river just behind our camp site, of the train crossing the bridge. I wish taking pictures was always this easy!
Click here to see Conway Scenic from above on Terraserver. The turntable and roundhouse are in the center of this shot, the golf course is off to the left, the station is off to the right and down just a bit from the turntable. You can see a line of cars at the station and another line of cars up the line a bit. To me, it almost looks like there is an engine on the turntable, but it is too hard to tell.
