We passed Sky Line Switch, met a down-bound train (with the locomotive named Great Gulf in charge), crossed the Appalachian Trail, marked with piles of stones, and finally ended our hour-and-a-quarter climb by swinging around a craggy knoll and coming to a stop in front of Summit House. 150 years later, the railway is still popular among tourists, pretty much unchanged in operating practices.Īs we approached timberline, trees thinned, then disappeared entirely. Unlike most trains, where a locomotive pulls cars, cog railway locomotives push cars up the hill.Ĭonstruction of the Cog Railway was begun in 1866, however, and completed to the summit – approximately three and a half miles – in 1869. This trip is very, very popular, and it’s wise to call for reservations.
One trestle, called “Jacob’s Ladder,” climbs a 37% grade. This was the world’s first mountain-climbing cog railway, and today it’s the only one still powered entirely by steam. Since most of the mountain is in the national forest,Īnd thus you may find the Mt. There are trails for every shape and age – from 15-minute waterfall strolls to scrambles up high summits. In summer and early fall, the White Mountains of New Hampshire are a hiker’s paradise. The mountains are among the highest east of tne Rockies, and they seem even higher than they really are because the valleys are so near sea level. On maps the White Mountains region is often colored green - to designate the national forests and state parks that blanket the 12,000 square miles of spread over northern New Hampshire. The train is traveling one hour to go three miles, through three climate zones.
How does Cog Railway work?īasically, the engine pushed the cars, which hold 56 passengers, up the steep slopes rather than pull them.
Barnum called it the “Second Greatest Show on Earth” (after his show). One New Hampshire legislator thought it was such an impossible folly that he dubbed it and said “You might as well build a rail to the moon.”This a national historic landmark referred to as “a railway to the moon”today. Once got lost on the mountain, which got him thinking there must be a better way than hiking or horses in getting to the summit of Mount Washington. Sylvester Marsh, an adventurer and a mountaineer is the one who invented the world’s first Cog Railway, going up to Mount Washington.
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