Randall and Elisabeth's Homebase: July 2011

Finally made some time to update my blog. As promised, here is a more detailed story about going up to the top of Mount Washington using the Cog Railway. It was one of those trips that you only make once in a lifetime. It was very interesting. The Cog Railway opened in 1869 and used wood fired boilers for the first forty years. Then they switched over to coal.

This picture shows one of the newer models that runs on Bio Diesel. They manufacture these engines right on the premises. Powered by a 600HP John Deere engine., running on hydraulic motors. See picture below.

Nice view of the engine.

Here is a good picture of the track. The middle part is where the drive cog of the engine goes in, see next picture.

Next few pictures show the grade that the train goes up on. You can see the next train coming down the mountain. Returning passengers that had gone up earlier. It takes about 45 minutes to make the commute. and then we spent about 55 minutes on top of the mountain. And then 45 minutes to go down. On the downward trip, the brakeman controls the brakes on the passenger car. Otherwise the engine would not be able to keep it slowed down enough.

This is one of the steepest parts, where the grade was about 37 percent. We stood in the isle of the train and leaned forward. Was it ever comical, just ask the people that were there. Caleb had tears in his eyes he was laughing so hard.

Here is a look back down the mountain. The halfway house on the left, the water tower below that and the station just beyond.

Almost at the top, we came across the Appalachian Trail. Those little piles of rock are the trail markers. There were people hiking on it as we went by.