50 Years of the Conway Scenic Railroad | Conway Scenic Railroad's 50th Anniversary Trains

The Conway Scenic Railroad was formed in 1974 by Dwight Smith, Carroll Reed and Bob Levy. Negotiations with the Boston & Maine Railroad to purchase trackage between Intervale and Conway had been made for years before the railroad finally sold the portion of the Conway Branch to them. On August 4th 1974 the inaugural run was made with Canadian National 7470 with two passenger cars to Conway.

20 years later the Conway Scenic under an agreement with the state of New Hampshire was granted rights to operate on state owned trackage to Crawford Notch on the former Maine Central Mountain Division. A year later the Conway Scenic ran the inaugural train to Crawford Notch after rehabbing the line and a year after that to Fabyans.

Flash forward to today 50 years later and the Conway Scenic Railroad still operates several excursion trains in the White Mountains including its original hour long journey to Conway as well as the supremely scenic notch train route to Crawford Notch and Fabyans. The Conway Scenic also still owns and operates its very first locomotive they owned, the Canadian National 7470.

On August 3rd and 4th the Conway Scenic Railroad celebrated its 50th anniversary of operating train rides in the White Mountains. The day consisted of freight extras, excursions to Conway, and many displays and activities in both Conway and North Conway including the Flying Yankee which recently was moved to Conway the following week before the event.

Maine Central 573 was dressed as Boston & Maine 1560 and led several freight extras to Conway and Bartlett using vintage freight cars including a former Boston & Maine caboose. B&M sister F7 units were in charge of valley train duties to Conway. It made it as if ID-2 or DI-1 was still running to and from Dover!

On Sunday power swapped and 1560 took the valley train while the sisters were in charge of the freight extras. RDC Millie also made shuttle runs to Conway on both days.

A disclaimer that this video was not professionally done as I tried to do my best in filming after about a year. Excuse any sudden movements on camera, the sounds of cars wheezing by and my camera clicking in the background, gnats buzzing around the lens, etc. Nonetheless thank you for watching and I hope you enjoy it! A big thank you to the Conway Scenic crew for putting on a great event. Here's to another 50 years of train rides on this iconic tourist railroad.

Taken August 3 & 4 2024