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We don’t go for train rides all that often. Three of the more memorable ones were out of Cottonwood Arizona, the Smoky Mountains and Leadville Colorado. Having already taken the cog railway to the top of Mount Washington about 3 weeks ago, we really weren’t due for another train excursion for a few years but we had heard good things about the ride out of Conway New Hampshire up through Crawford Notch. In fact while doing a hike to the top of Mount Willard back in 2018, we had seen this train come through over 1000 feet below and thought it looked like a really interesting ride. We debated about doing the ride yet in August while we are still in the area, or possibly waiting until later in the year and swing back into the area on our way back from a month in Maine with the hopes of getting in the autumn colors. Since it seemed like coming back in October would require a fair amount of backtracking, and the trains are likely very crowded during leaf peeping season, we decided to just go for the ride before we head out in a week.
Conway Scenic Railroad offers several different train routes but the one we want is called the Mountaineer. It starts in North Conway and heads north and west through Crawford Notch, stopping at Fabyan near the Mount Washington Hotel before turning back. It is close to a 60 mile round trip lasting around 5 hours. They offer various levels of seating - coach class, first class, and dome class. Tickets range from $75 to $185 per person. For the two higher seating options, you actually reserve specific seats when making your reservations. We wanted to make this trip a great experience so we did a little bit of research to understand the different options. We stumbled upon a YouTube channel called “Simply Trains” hosted by a young teenage boy who is into trains big time. He had several videos about the different options and that helped us make our choice when booking our trip.
It’s a 65 mile drive to the train station in North Conway with an 11:30 departure time. We arrive a little over an hour early to make sure we can find parking and get our tickets from the will call desk in plenty of time. With tickets in hand and instructions as to the boarding process, we have time to wander around the cute little town and work on a short Adventure Lab that tours the area. There are lots of neat shops and restaurants in the area and it looks like the town of North Conway could be its own destination.
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| North Conway Station |
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| Candy Counter |
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| 1914 Model T |
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| Our Locomotive for Train Ride |
We head back to the station and check out the old train station before lining up for boarding. Since I really wanted to be able to get decent photos during the trip, I knew that while the dome class seats might have the best views, taking pictures though curved glass might prove difficult and it was unclear whether the windows in first class opened, but we knew that the windows in coach class cars did open plus there is an open air car option as well. So we had opted for coach class tickets which do not have reserved seats - $159 for the two of us. From our train investigation, we knew we wanted to sit on the depot (east) side of the car for best views along the trip. So the conductor points us to the correct car and we settle in to what were quite comfortable seats.
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| Displays Inside Train Station |
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| Elegant Staircase |
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| Inside Coach Class Car |
We head out of the North Conway Station to start our journey. Our car was not even half full but I didn’t wander around the other cars to get a sense for how crowded the rest of the train was. This is a much smoother ride than the cog railroad! We had chosen a great day from a weather standpoint with mainly clear skies with the occasional white puffy cloud.
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| Pulling Out of Station |
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| Just North of Station |
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| Town of Intervale |
There is a decent speaker system in the train cars and for the full first half of the trip, a guy tells the passengers all about the history of the train and is sure to point out interesting landmarks that we are coming upon during the trip.
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| Saco River |
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| Over Trestle Bridge |
Besides my normal Sony camera, I had brought along my GoPro with the hopes of getting some interesting video of the trip. It turns out that this train route runs through some rather forested areas making the distance views rather infrequent. Fortunately I had configured the GoPro to take pictures at the same time (every 5 seconds) as I was shooting video so I was able to find some shots just from the sheer number of pictures taken between the two cameras - over 800 for the day! However, the vast majority of the pictures taken ended up being blurry tree leaves 20 feet from the moving train.
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| Still Following River Valley |
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| Nice Mountain View |
There are several bridges we go over along the way and a couple of smaller towns. As we get closer to Crawford Notch, some of the views open up a bit more and we start to see some of the Presidential Mountains to the east.
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| Everyone Waves at Trains |
We pass by the site of a steam locomotive explosion that took place in the summer of 1927. Purely by luck, one of my pictures from the GoPro captured the sign. The stretch before arriving at the depot in Crawford Notch is definitely very scenic. I can only imagine what it would look like during peak fall colors.
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| Chris Looks Out |
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| Distant Waterfall |
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| Train Explosion Site |
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| Crawford Notch to the North |
At first it wasn’t clear there was a “better” side of the train to be sitting on, but once we rolled in to Crawford Notch it became clear that those of us on the right hand side were enjoying the more impressive views.
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| Looking South Through Crawford Notch |
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| Waterfalls |
It was also nice that there were some long, sweeping curves in the track which permits us to see the length of the train ahead and behind our car.
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| The Front Half of Train |
The station at Crawford is not our turn around point, but it is an intermediate stopping point. I’ll assume the train always stops here but it may have been a special stop to allow a bus load of tourists to get off the train and back onto their bus so they could continue on with their travels in the area.
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| First Class Seating |
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| Engine 255 |
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| Crawford's Station |
Since we were stopping for a bit, I got off to check things out. We have been here before doing some hiking out of this location but it was more impressive to be able to walk around the train.
Back on the train, we have another 4 miles to go before we actually head back. We head past the beautiful Mount Washington Resort that we visited 3 weeks ago. At Fabyans, the old depot building looks like it has been converted to a restaurant. The locomotive detaches from the front of the train, switches tracks and positions itself on the other end for the return trip.
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| Mount Washington Resort |
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| Locomotive Swaps Ends |
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| Old Fabyans Station |
As the train begins the return, those of us in coach were asked to swap seats with people from the other side of the train. Instead we wandered out to the open air car since the weather was so nice. The seating on this car runs lengthwise so we are facing directly at the action.
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| Over Another Trestle |
We started talking with another couple seated next to us. They were visiting from Canada and we had a nice talk with them. It turned out they had forked out the big money for the dome class seating but decided to get a different perspective for the second half of the trip.
We did have one unplanned stop on the way back. There was a tree that had fallen and was very close to hitting the train with its upper branches. I remember earlier where I had nearly gotten whacked in the face from the trees leaves. The engineer stopped the train, got out the chainsaw he carried just for this purpose and took care of the problem. I suppose that was easier than dispatching a work crew to deal with it later.
We arrived back at the station in North Conway around 4:30 in the afternoon. What a wonderful train ride. It may not surpass some of the other ones but it was still well worth it. Now for the 90 minute drive back home.
