The Conway Scenic Railroad
Near North Conway, New Hampshire
In the middle of North Conway stands a jewel of a train station, a Victorian depot built in eighteen seventy-four with a fanciful roofline that has led people to call its style Russian Victorian. It was designed by the Boston architect Nathaniel Bradlee, and today it is the heart of the Conway Scenic Railroad. The rails reached this valley in the early eighteen seventies, and they transformed it.
Before the railroad, getting to the White Mountains meant a long, punishing journey by stagecoach. Once the trains arrived, the valley opened to the world. Tourists poured in by the thousands, grand hotels rose to receive them, and the whole region became one of the great vacation destinations of nineteenth-century America.
The original line was later absorbed by the Boston and Maine Railroad. The depot and its rail yard were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen seventy-nine, and the tourist railroad that operates here today was founded in nineteen seventy-four. Its trains still run two great routes.
The Valley Train makes a gentle round trip through the farms and river meadows around North Conway, while the Mountaineer climbs westward on the old mountain division line, hugging ledges and crossing high trestles through the wild and dramatic scenery of Crawford Notch. Riding it, you see the mountains the way the first tourists did, from the window of a train.
