A popular activity during peak foliage in all of New England, but perhaps more so in New Hampshire, is a scenic train ride. Our original plan was to ride the Mount Washington Cog Railway, the first of its kind and a true engineering marvel of its time. Weather played spoilsport though, as it often does up in these mountains. We spent the morning holed in our chalet, then figured we can go on a valley train ride where the thick clouds won’t be a spoiler. For Tintin, any train ride was going to be fun anyway. The Conway Scenic Railroad was only a few minutes away, and so we went! It was very pretty, and we regretted not taking the longer train that went farther through canyons and into the Crawford Notch region.
Photo Tip: Just like waterfalls, sunny weather isn’t necessarily ideal for fall color photography. Colors pop better in even, diffuse light, and fog can provide drama. Shooting from a moving train isn’t easy, as all of the images on this page were. Couple of things to keep in mind. First, it is hard to avoid getting some unwanted object in the frame if you shoot wide angle, so best to stick with a telephoto lens. Second, you have to experiment to find out the shutter speed needed to get sharp photos depending on train speed. And it can be deceptively fast! It took me some time to put the camera in shutter priority ar 1/500 sec.