TILTON, N.H. — Dwight A. Smith, founder of the Conway Scenic Railroad, has died at age 100.
Smith, a U.S. Navy veteran who served in World War II, had been living at the New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton since 2020.
The Conway Scenic said in a statement that it “mourns the passing of its founder and visionary Dwight A. Smith … A long-time friend of the railroad that he helped found, Dwight will always be memorialized by steam locomotive 7470 — the engine that he purchased in 1968 and restored to service in 1974 to begin excursions on the Conway Scenic Railroad. This locomotive was formally named for Dwight in a public ceremony on Aug. 4, 2019. Conway Scenic owes its legacy to Dwight’s ingenuity and visit that preserved elements of the past for future generations to enjoy.”
According to a Laconia Daily Sun article marking Smith’s 100th birthday in January, Smith was drafted into the Navy in 1943, serving as a radar operator on the U.S.S. South Dakota until his math skills led to him being assigned to handle equations for ordinance. He graduated from the Navy V-12 program at Dartmouth College in 1947 as the only student with combat experience, after receiving his honorable discharge in April 1946.
He then joined the Boston & Maine Railroad, rising throughits ranks over 26 years, including becoming the railroad’s youngest station manager at age 30 in Springfield, Vt. On a 1968 rail excursion to North Conway, N.H., Smith noticed the town’s former B&M train station, along with a roundhouse and turntable. “It was a wasted resource … boarded up the way they were,” he told the Nashau Telegraph in 1977, saying he thought the town was “an ideal location” for a tourist railroad.
The station, roundhouse, and turntable had been bought three years earlier by local businessmen Carroll Reed and William Levy; Smith reached an agreement with the two men to form a tourist railroad following his visit. A six-year effort and legal fight followed — during which Smith left the Boston & Maine — before Smith and his partners won possession of 7 miles of the railroad. An agreement between the B&M and the three men was reached in July 1974, and the first Conway Scenic train operated on Aug. 4, 1974. Expansion of service onto the former Maine Central Crawford Notch branch began with a special train in December 1994 and regular service on Sept. 1, 1995.
Smith and the other original owners were bought out in 1999 by Russ Seybold — who had been the railroad’s president and general manager since 1990— and his wife. It changed hands again in 2018 with purchase by current owners Profile Mountains Holding Corp. [see “New Hampshire tourist railroad sold,” Trains.com, Jan. 31, 2018].
Mass Bay RRE mourns the passing of Dwight Smith. What a life he led and what a legacy he leaves for us to enjoy! Over the years we ran a number of “Steam in the Snow” events on the Conway Scenic behind the 7470, and whenever Dwight was able to join us we made sure that he got a cab ride or a prime seat on the Gertrude Emma. What a thrill to see Dwight’s beaming smile in the cab window!
Dwight was a longtime Railroad Enthusiast, and it is a point of pride for us that it happened to be a Railroad Enthusiasts’ Snow Train that delivered him to North Conway that fateful day in February, 1968. Of course, as a longtime Boston & Maine employee, he might well have discovered it anyway.
Dwight will always be remembered for restoring the 7470, but his restoration of the Gertrude Emma is just as remarkable. Dwight and Emm spent years painstakingly stripping multiple layers of paint from the interior of the venerable car to restore it to its former glory – a true labor of love that we can still enjoy on her daily runs from North Conway to Conway.
So thank you, Dwight, for the memories and history you have left for us!
A giant passes. A hundred years is not long enough, but what a gift Dwight Smith was to railway history and preservation.
My tour company, Rail Travel Center/Rail Travel Adventures, had a 30 year+ relationship with the Conway Scenic RR under Dwight Smith and Russ Seybold’s management and they were always a joy to work with. I had retired before the last ownership change, but have ridden since and the CSR remains, like the Strasburg and the Durango & Silverton, a model for how to do railway preservation right.
Dwight was a long-term supporter of our Champlain Valley Chapter of the NRHS and a treasured program presenter. He was a truly great raconteur and a fellow who took a chance on what seemed to be a dying railway (the B&M Conway Branch and later also the Maine Central Mountain Division over Crawford Notch–in the shadow of Mount Washington) and restored them to the top status of all heritage railways. You are already deeply missed!
All Aboard, Dwight, for paradise!