Martha's Vineyard of Rhode Island and Massachusetts takes about four and a half hours (270 minutes). In the era before modern highways and jet planes, travelers took New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad trains from New York City or Boston to Woods Hole or Hyannis, at which point they would embark on ferries to the island. Commuter airline Cape Air offers frequent service to the island via the Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY). It provides year-round service to and from Boston, Hyannis, New Bedford, Providence, and Nantucket, and seasonal service to White Plains, New York. Additional air service is provided to New
Martha's Vineyard Railroad Martha's Vineyard Railroad The Martha's Vineyard Railroad was a narrow gauge railroad on the island of Martha's Vineyard. It was built in 1874 to connect the Oak Bluffs wharf with the section of Edgartown known as Katama. The line closed in 1896. After the decline of the whale oil industry in the 1860s, the east coast island of Martha's Vineyard sought to develop a tourist trade. As part of this effort a gauge railroad was chartered in 1874 to take tourists across the island. The railway started at Oak Bluffs where steamships of the Old Colony Railroad docked and ran