Let's begin with the Conway Scenic Railroad operating out of North Conway, NH. This is a typical tourist operation with a Budd RDC and a number of locomotive hauled options. While two steam locomotives are on property, they are both out of service. Here we see former New Haven RDC #23 pulling into the station, still painted in it's NYS&W colors from its time operating south of Syracuse before 2008.
The yard was open to the public and one can see former B&M F7A #4266 and stored NHCR GE 44-ton #360.
The complex also hosted some historic signaling appliances such an operating Wig-Wag, a diamond crossing ball signal and a lower quadrant semaphore intermediate signal.
#501 is a former Maine Central 2-8-0 Consolidation type locomotive built by Alco in 1910. It is currently on display, but is a candidate for restoration to operating condition.
North Conway supports an operating turntable and small engine facility which is used for maintenance and restoration projects.
Former B&M F7A #4268 had long been displayed on this track next to the engine house as the mechanical components had long since been gutted. However in April 2018 it was moved into the shoppes for restoration using doner parts from GP9 #1757.
Which in 2017 was on display behind the engine house with the doors open for public inspection. This unit has never operated with the Conway Scenic and was purchased solely as a source of parts for the more photogenic F unit #4268. The rebuild will result in the F7 having the mechanicals of a later model F9, including the EMD 567C engine seen here.
As I mentioned before the weather on Mt Washington is notoriously bad with freezing temperatures and hurricane force winds to be expected in every month of the year. However on the Saturday before Labour Day the weather was uncharacteristically clear with near unlimited visibility and temperatures around 60 degrees. Basically Mount Washington only sees about 10 or so of these days a year so we were very lucky to go when we did. Here we see the toll booth for the Auto Road. Due to the nice weather we had to wait about 20 minutes in line, but that given the weather the wait wasn't actually that bad.
This isn't a mountaineering blog so here is a token photo of the 5000 foot marker on the road with Mount Adams in the background. Under normal operations traffic moves at about 10-25mph in the up direction, however the record for the 5 mile ascent is a mere 4 minutes.
It's hard to resist the urge to stop at the numerous scenic overlooks. This one provided access to the Appalachian Train, which, above the tree line, was marked by stone cairns.
The historic stage building is a testament to the mountain's weather as it has been equipped with chains to literally prevent it from blowing away. Today this structure houses the peak's gift shoppe.
