Icy Frozen Train on Deer Street

SeacoastNH.com Presents
Historic Portsmouth #344  

And you think you’ve got a long driveway to plow! Pity the people who had to keep the tracks of the Boston & Maine Railway clear of snow and de-ice the steam locomotives. It’s always important to remind ourselves that public transportation in Portsmouth was far superior for our great-grandparents than it is for us today. (Continued below)

 

 Visitors from any major American city could move seamlessly from train, to trolley, to Portsmouth and the beaches of New Hampshire. Ferries left every hour for the Isles of Shoals and moved back and forth between Appledore and Star every few minutes in season. The hub of that transportation system was the railway station on Deer Street where the tracks still remain. This picture reminds us of a verse by Portsmouth-born Sam Walter Foss. In his poem “The Locomotive and the Snowflake” a mighty man-made railroad train is defeated and stopped cold by billions of tiny ice crystals sent by Mother Nature. (Photo Courtesy of the Portsmouth Athenaeum).

 

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