Hi fellow Travelers,
Today I'm back with a long overdue post from the fall! Our trip on the beautiful Mount Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire!
This one has been sitting in my drafts for too long lol
Back in the fall we took a trip to spend some time in the mountains while I had a few weeks off between jobs. There were a few things there that we wanted to do because we figured we might be moving so let's get out there and experience what we can!
Neither my wife nor I had been to Mount Washington before (outside of a useless drive up the mountain in the winter when it was closed.. story for another day that wasn't our fault lol) and we knew that we wanted to experience it. What we didn't realize was that we actually got the best opportunity in the house!
There were all kinds of old former trains that were used to trek up the mountain train tracks here. I don't know exactly what some of these are but they looked pretty cool! You can see that the opening there is where they used to put the coal.
Down comes our train!
What was cool was that there are 4 different trains that trek up the mountain. 3 of them are modern diesel trains and 1 of them is an original coal-fired steam train! This one here is the new diesel train.
This is part of the river that flows down from the top of the mountain. It will be relevant in a little bit.
So my wife unknowingly got lucky and booked the best train they had! The original steam engine train! What we can see here are the same brake mechanisms that have been used to operate this train for over a hundred years. Talk about preserving history!
What we are looking at here is the boiler for the steam train. It's a little hard to see but in the middle of that at the very bottom you can see the cog track running underneath the train.
The train produces a hell of a lot of steam that's for sure!
What we can see here are the PSI gauges of the brakes, with the wild amount of steam going on in the background. The brakes that they use are the same ones that have been used for decades. There are a set of brakes at the front wheels and one at the back. They need both of them to correctly operate the train on the descent.
That river that we saw earlier comes into play here. What I think is amazing is that the tank here is completely gravity fed water! No pumps used at all to operate it. They've used the same method to get water into the tank here since the cog railway was opened in the 1800's! I think they've obviously changed the tank as it ages but what I loved was they are using technology all over the place that has been used since the 1800's!
I forget how many gallons of water they use but I think it's a 500 gallon storage tank and we used maybe 200 gallons of water to get to where we are. The ascent is obviously the most costly for the fuel and water but they only fill it up here and at the base.
The gravity feed on the tank pumps water incredibly fast, I think he was only there about a minute before it filled. The pipe he's using is easily 8-10 inches so that can shoot a shitload of water that's for sure lol.
What's crazy is this hut here is level! We are at a crazy incline and the track is at a 25 something grade right now and I think the peak grade is 37 or something insane!
What I found amazing as well was this very same engine you see here in the picture is the original steam engine that was built back in the late 1800's. They've made some changes to it to reinforce parts here and there over time but the guy giving the tour really went into some wild details about the way it was constructed and how it's lasted for over a hundred years. They don't build things like they used to that's for sure!
Overall the trip was amazing and one I highly recommend. There are the other trains that go up the mountain or you can drive your car but the history behind the steam cog railway train was remarkable! The wheel and cog system that's used to bring the train up the mountain is the same type that was invented (by someone else) and used in the 1870's. Combine that with the braking system that has been used all along and the original steam locomotive engine and it was a damn fascinating trip.
One of the other things that was cool is the guy who was operating the brakes is an apprentice for the steam engine guys. Each person who works the train has to go through an apprenticeship to step up their skills and knowledge. The person on the brakes had to go through an apprenticeship to operate the brakes. Then they work on the apprenticeship to operate the steam engine. Each apprenticeship takes several years! I think the guy said that he's on his fourth year doing the brakes and that he's just now started to spend time with the guy that operates the steam engine itself and that is an apprenticeship that takes several years as well because of how dangerous it can be. They don't want to hurt anyone onboard the train of course but they also have to be incredibly careful of the steam engine to make sure it doesn't blow up. The guy gets out every time and checks every single gasket and joint on the steam locomotive which is what takes so long to learn. Really awesome to see people who want to do this stuff!
I thought that it was one of the most fascinating trips I've taken in my life and it's been one that's just around the corner from us practically! Not a single person in my old friends group has taken this trip so I'm really glad to have broken that boundary and gotten up there to experience some awesome history for ourselves.
Mount Washington Railway photo
If you're ever in the New Hampshire area and are looking for something to do between June and October, I highly recommend the Mount Washington Cog Railway! their site is here
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