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  • Conway Scenic Railroad (CSRX) discussion thread

  • Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England
Pertaining to all railroading subjects, past and present, in New England

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 #1537244  by b&m 1566
 
As of midnight last night the state of California, is now 100% in lock down, (only the essentials are allowed to stay open). In the coming days, I expect other states to follow suit. Heritage railroads all across this country (and the globe for that matter) are going to be suffering heavily from this, along with thousands upon thousands of other jobs. I'm afraid some of these railroads might not survive this. Hopefully the Conway Scenic can hang on.
 #1537367  by b&m 1566
 
The 2020 schedule is out, although I wonder if there's some tweaking needed. Right now the 2nd departure for Bartlett only has first class tickets available.
Another thing I noticed right away, is that all departure times for the valley train, have been moved up 30 minutes, accept the first departure to Bartlett, that is delayed 15 minutes. How is this going to work with the notch train, which still has the 11am departure? Are they going to hold the Valley train at Conway longer to give the notch train time to depart, before it arrives back? Makes sense given that the Bartlett train doesn't depart till 11:15 (Used to be 11:30). This move (without moving the departure time for the notch train to 10:30), will no longer allow the passing of the two trains in Bartlett.
A few weeks ago I made mention about the dining train being cut from Wednesday, it appears that's back and now Friday's are included. Like the rest of the departure times, this departure was also move but from 6pm to 6:30pm.
So why the change in departure times?
 #1537488  by Jonathan
 
Railfans Weekend looks like it’s not going to have the big notch train on Sunday. 7470 might not be used as much at railfans this year. :( I wanted the steam freight (maybe we’ll have that) and the steam notch trip they did last year (probably won’t happen)
 #1537498  by b&m 1566
 
They don't have much listed for events yet and it does appear there's still some tweaking needed to the schedule. It's possible the schedule for Railfans' Weekend just hasn't been release yet. Their 2020 brochures, are going to be extremely late this year, if they still haven't finalized the schedule and events.

As for the 7470, I recall them saying it will only be operating on Saturday's this year, starting in June. A couple of years ago on this forum the rate per mile was discussed and they're not cheap to run. If I remember, it was around $70 per mile when you include "all" cost, from: crews, fuel, insurance, maintenance & inspections. So with three round trips a day at 11 miles per trip, it adds up very quickly. That and I guess they just don't have enough qualified people to operate the engine.

I still can't figure out why they changed the departure times for the Valley Trains by moving all departures up 30 minutes earlier and moving back the dinner train 30 minutes later. They say some exciting changes are coming, would this have anything to do with them possibly squeezing in a late afternoon departure to Redstone? Just a guess on my part, I'm going off half rumors from last year but it all makes sense if that is the case.
 #1537614  by b&m 1566
 
I just watch marbles race down a track on some beach... there's going to be a lot of "moot" discussions for the foreseeable future.
 #1537749  by b&m 1566
 
NH Governor Chris Sununu, just orders all non essential businesses to close starting at midnight on Saturday and cannot reopen till May 4th. That just officially eliminated the April 11th start up for the Conway Scenic.
The stay-at-home order will take effect Friday night at 11:59 p.m., Sununu said. Nonessential businesses must close by the end of Friday, he said.
Click here to read the rest of the article.
 #1538942  by NEK
 
I just recently recovered some pics from 2018 of the Conway Scenic in Crawford Notch that I thought I would share.
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 #1539109  by b&m 1566
 
Great pictures! Were those taken from a Drone or did you hike up the opposite side of the notch?
Hopefully there will be trains rolling through the notch this year. It maybe a while before we hear the trains in N. Conway again.
 #1539318  by highrail
 
Bartlett, 1977, looking west. I scanned this in from a slide. Standing at the freight shed looking west. You can see the west leg of the wye ahead on the left. Route 302 in the distance, and the outline of the roundhouse is just visible in the area of the birches. I wonder what happened to the coaches and the boxcar? This was still active MEC through to the notch at that time. Steve
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 #1539325  by Steameng7
 
The boxcar in the photo was the Bartlett tool car and is now on display at the Bartlett Roundhouse. It was built in 1918 by the Keith Car Works, in Sagamore, on Cape Cod. One of the other cars is the #902. It was scrapped in Bartlett by the Conway Scenic about 2008. The third car remains a mystery.
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