Rickety Rackety Railroad, H.M. Beach

Raquette Lake RR Station and Steamboat Dock

The railroad was the principal mode of transportation to the Adirondack Park during its heyday. Once in the park, visitors often took large steamboats across the lake to their destinations, or just to tour the lake. Large tour boats, like the Clearwater on the Fulton Chain of Lakes, and Raquette Lake Navigation Company's vessel, continue to give visitors a similar experience with its narrated tours of the lakes.

The Snow Train!

This is a postcard of the "Snow Train" arriving in Thendara, New York, with skiers ready for a festive day on the slopes. We have not yet ventured out to McCauley Mountain in Old Forge to enjoy a little skiing, but it used to be, and perhaps still is, a popular winter activity. The trains, of course, are long gone. The Adirondack Scenic Railroad still runs, mostly as a tourist attraction, stopping in Thendara near Van Aukens Inne. We've never had any guests arrive on trains, and yet trains were the catalyst for the development and increasing popularity of the Adirondacks. Railroad barons had great camps built and private railcars to shuttle them to the woods. And in the beginning, the railroads were the best, fastest, easiest route to the wilderness. Roads had not been built and developed. Railroad history is everywhere in the Adirondacks, but unfortunately today it is mostly just that - history.