This video comes to us all the way back from 1939. Any Bostonians out there that would like to see a comeback of the ski train culture?
“Snow trains” were once the backbone of New England skiing, when rail service from metropolitan areas was responsible for the sport’s initial popularity. By 1939 skiers by the thousands were flocking to the mountains of New Hampshire & Vermont, many by trains. When Mount Cranmore opened for its first season in 1937-38, snow trains helped bring skiers from Boston to fill its slopes. The war years of the early 1940s found as many as five trains coming into North Conway on a Sunday, carrying up to 4,000 skiers for a one-day trip. At their peak, the Snow Trains carried 24,000 passengers each season. Then a decades-long shift to vehicle dependence triggered a widespread phaseout. By the 1950s the snow trains shuddered to a halt.”
This video came from The Francis Parnell Murphy Museum and Historical Archive in Newport, NH.
