May 1, 2010

We are up and running again! While it is nice to have a respite from operations for a brief time, it is very good to have the railroad running again on weekends with an 11:30 am departure to Bartlett and a 1:30 pm departure to Conway. As of May 8, we will be in daily operation through November when we will drop back to weekends again.

Maine Track Maintenance, Inc. has completed their work on our timber pile trestle over Moat Brook on the Conway Line. They replaced a number of wooden stringers (22) and more than 50% of the deck ties. As a part of this project we spread a half car of ballast stone on each end of the bridge and then MTM sent their tamper down to raise and tamp up the approaches. The whole job came out very nice and is a big improvement to the infrastructure of the Conway Line. This entire project was funded by the railroad without the aid of state funds or subsidy. We thank you our patrons who, through your ticket purchases, make this kind of work possible. In a separate project, this one funded by the town of Conway and the State of New Hampshire, MTM completed the installation of 85 track feet of new welded rail at the Intervale Crossroad crossing. Since the asphalt plants were not running at the time this work was completed the crossing has been temporarily filled with cold patch. As part of this project the crossing will be receiving brand new crossing signals. We don't have a date for the installation yet, but all of the engineering for it has been done, and we look forward to the added safety that these new signals will provide.

During the past winter, we had an incredible number of trees that were blown down on the line between Crawford Depot and Twin Mountain, easily numbering in the hundreds. This was enough of a problem that we actually ran 573 out there with the snow plow and a crew of five who spent all day cutting. The plow was used as a base of operations for the crew. We have to go back again at least one more day in order to totally clear the line. We can get a hy-rail car through now, but we need to have it cut well back so that any new paint jobs that are coming our way won't get scratched. It looked as though the line had been closed for years instead of just a few months. It is strange, too, because there was almost no damage between Bartlett and Crawford Depot. Fortunately, there have been no issues with the track structure to contend with. There have been no washouts or washdowns, and no big boulders have come down off the mountain side and landed on the track as in years past. We are grateful for that.

GP35 #216 is in the paint shop as this is being written. Wording for the green shield on the nose will read "Conway Scenic" top and bottom, and other wording will read "The Notch Train Route." Delivery of this locomotive is getting very close. There were various incarnations of the MEC yellow scheme, and we have picked various elements from each of them to make what we think will be an attractive scheme. There has been one major change, and that is that the base yellow colour has been changed from harvest gold to MBTA purple. Sounds bad right? Well, that second to last line is not true, but the base color has been changed to 'bahama gold,' which is the shade of yellow that we have been using on our cars for years. So this will be a Maine Central heritage paint scheme but with our yellow and green colors. This is being done so that these locomotives will closely match the colors of the existing Notch equipment.

In our shop, the red and green has been applied to dome car DORTHEA MAE, and the black still has to be put on. RDC MILLIE has had the walls and door for the new rest room installed and painted. A local big box retailer mixed the paint for the new rest room, and they did a perfect job matching the baby blue of the RDC's interior color. We also painted some window frames in the car and generally cleaned and spruced it up for its "weekdays in May" running. I think it looks pretty good, come and check it out! Work continues on HATTIE EVANS with all of the stainless counter tops now installed as well as most of the oak paneling and trim work in the main dining area. The 470 club had new rear doors fabricated for 4266 and 4268. The one for 4266 has been painted and installed. The new doors are exact copies of the original EMD doors complete with wire reinforced square glass windows. The rusted out section of 4266's carbody on the engineer's side rear quarter has been replaced and painted and looks good.

There are lots of other things going on around here on a day to day basis, but I will leave them for next time.

If you haven't done so already, be sure to visit our friends and neighbors to the south at the SILVER LAKE RAILROAD in Madison this year. They are helping to keep alive another few miles of the old Conway Branch. They have a beautiful Station that contains a very nice museum and a B&M freight house which is very similar if not exactly the same as the ones that we maintain in North Conway and Conway. The way we see it, we are all in this together. If you visit here, you are also likely to visit there and vice versa.

Thank you for your support of and interest in Conway Scenic Railroad. ALWAYS EXPECT A TRAIN!

Paul Hallett