The New Haven RR Image Page -- Seashore Tours

THE IMAGE PAGE

The 'image page' is where we put a changing variety of New Haven Railroad photographs and advertising material for you to enjoy. Be sure to check back here often because we plan to refresh these images on a regular basis.

Seashore Tours

September 1st, 2001

The Seashore Tours were seasonal summer-only tours, operated out of Boston and Providence, to Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket. The Seashore Tours were all expense paid vacation packages which included train, bus, and steamship transportation, hotel accommodations, meals, and guided sight-seeing tours. A number of package tour plans were available, from three to seven days duration, to one or more destinations on Cape Cod and the islands. The Seashore Tours were administered out of the New Haven Railroad Travel Bureau in Boston's South Station. When the trustees shut down the Travel Bureaus in Boston and New York City during the summer of 1961, that was the end of the Seashore Tours. All items from the collection of Marc Frattasio.

During 1951, when this Seashore Tours folder was distributed, tour trains departed Boston's South Station to Cape Cod every day from June 16th through September 1st. Trains ran to Hyannis or Woods Hole. At Woods Hole, connections were made with steamships which continued on to the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.

The first Seashore Tours folder to incorporate the McGinnis administration's new image colors and 'NH' logo was this example, printed during June 1955. The cover of this folder was designed by Norman Ives, a Yale University art professor who helped graphic designer/photographer Herbert Matter create new image advertising material for the New Haven Railroad throughout 1955.

This Seashore Tours folder dates from the summer of 1957. By this time, the New Haven Railroad was running Seashore Tours from June 7th through September 13th. Note the hole at the top of this folder, it was meant to be suspended from a string or hook like a single sheet tear-off.

In July 1961, the New Haven Railroad went bankrupt for the second (and final) time in its corporate history. The trustees quickly abolished the Travel Bureaus in South Station and Grand Central Terminal as a cost-cutting move, bringing the Seashore Tours to an end. This folder from 1960 plugged the last full Seashore Tour season.

Here's the back cover of the 1960 Seashore Tours folder shown above. The back cover presented general tour information (schedules are in daylight savings time, tickets are only good in accordance with the itinerary, tour rates are quoted from Boston and Providence, etc.) and gave the addresses and telephone numbers for the Travel Bureau at Boston's South Station and the General Passenger Agent at Providence Union Station.