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Mount Washington Cog Railway

PDF package contents

Geared to the MountainsBy Lincoln Warren and H. S. WalkerPages 28-34, June 1941

Railway to the CloudsBy Stephen BogartPages 28-31, June 1946

Steep but SlowBy S. S. WorthenPages 38-42, July 1956

Steam . . . at Sea Level and 6288 Feet UpBy David P. MorganPages 22-26, June 1957

The Strange Case of the Celebration Train That Got Out of GearBy George W. Pettengill Jr.Pages 46-51, July 1959

New Steam on the MountainBy Randall PefferPages 41-45, May 1973

Climb Every MountainBy Charles MorrillPages 64-71, May 2000

© 2011 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.TrainsMag.com

Geared to ike Mountains

* Mount Washington Cog Railway is oldest

or its hind, the highest pike

in the East.

By Lmcolnin Warren and H. S. Walker.

F^very railroad has its own characteristics

''of length, brevity, odd rolling stock, own

ership, and route; but for a really unusual

pike you can't beat a scenic mountain

climber.

The first cog road in the world is also the

steepest in existence today. It is the4'-7"

gauge Mount Washington Cog Railway, 3.17

miles in length, at Marshfield, N. H., opened

in 1869, when the big news of the day con

cerned the completion of the Pacific Railroad

to California. To date the Mount Washington

Railway, highest in the East, has a 100 per

cent safety record.

A cog road gets its name from a

geared rack or third rail located be

tween the two running rails. This is

engaged by a gear underneath the lo

comotive. In this way the engine has

almost perfect traction even on the

steepest parts of the railroad. In the

United States there are still two rack

railroads, the Mount Washington line

and the Manitou & Pike's Peak in Col

orado. In Europe there are quite a

number, some of them operated elec

trically.

We climb aboard at Base Station.

The coach rests against a roller

mounted on the front of the engine

frame and a chain is thrown around

an upright on the car frame. Suddenly

there is a vibration and shaking that

would dislodge a weak person's diges

tive tract. It is only the hogger helpinghimself to a handful of throttle. The

fireman waves his scoop and with a

blasting of exhaust we're off, ulti

mately attaining the dizzy, hair-raising speed

of three miles per hour. The car, with 40 to

50 passengers aboard, is quite a load to push,

so the whole engine shakes fit to fall apart.

Ammonoosuc River flows down the raoun-

The

a rolle

ol the

tain past Base Station, and over this the train

passes on a well built trestle. More than one

passenger wonders if the train will stall al

together. Sitting at the hot end of the car, we

can watch the boiler end change color due to

the exhaust pressure. Soot rains down on the

roof, platforms, and right of way.

Trees have been cleared for some distance

on each side of the trestle, and we can see

skunks, rabbits, woodchucks, and snakes in

the grass (reptiles; there are no humans on

the site) .

We reach Waumbek Tank about a third of

the way up the mountain. The name comes

from the old Indian"Waumbekket-methna,"

which means "WhiteMountains."

Here we

alight and board an

other train of the same

makeup which has de

scended from above. It

has already refueled at

the tank and coal bin

adjacent to the track.

The brakeman calls

attention to the steepest

section of the trestle,

Jacob's Ladder, with a

grade of 37 per cent.

The average grade is 25

per cent. As we ride the

platform we look down

and decide to hang on a

bit harder, for the jag

ged rocks 20 feet below

are most uninviting.

The changing vegeta

tion reveals that in a

distance of less than two

miles we have gone

from the temperate to

the arctic zone. Here have been found 126

species of sub-arctic plants and 63 arctic

plants, many of the latter having no other

home this side of Labrador. In time we reach

timber line, above which nothing grows.

coaclie

Lincoln Warren.

5 are pushed bythe pilot beam

^d locomotive.

TRAINS 29 JUNE

1

.aM.-7-IkivtIIl..L

I-

W Washington C05 fly. |

Linn H. Westcott.

The cog railroad is three miles lon^.

Base Station was once connected with the Maine Central by a standard gauge branch line, but autos

now take travelers to the start of the mountain trip. Mount Washington is the highest peak in the East.

At Gulf Tank, two-thirds of the way up, we

stop again, repeating the same procedure as

before. As the sturdy little kettle of this third

train blasts her way upward we pass a small,

natural freak a profile of a man and, far

ther on, two graves. One is the cairn of Lizzie

Bourne, 23, who died in 1855 attempting to

reach the summit.

At last we round a long curve and pull up

Approaching'

Jacob's Ladder.

Another train can be seen in the distance. Notice

the cog rail or rack in the center of the track.

directly before Summit House. This, the third

building on the site, was opened in 1915. We

have reached an altitude of 6284 feet. The

building is called Mount Washington Club,

and contains a post office, spacious lobby,

huge fireplace, dining room, modern bath

rooms and steam-heated bed rooms to ac

commodate 140 guests. Fresh water is

pumped by steam up the mountain at a pres

sure of over 1800 pounds per square inch.

At the end of the trestle is the weather

bureau building. To withstand Winter storms

it is secured to the mountain by two stout

cables thrown over the roof and made fast to

cement anchors. The wind is very great at

times, the highest velocity recorded being 231

miles per hour (April 12, 1934).

The entire surrounding view is well worth

the trip. On a clear day visibility is as much

as 130 miles, including, at times, a glimpse of

New York and Canada. As we ascended we

saw the Presidential peaks of Jefferson,

Madison, and Adams. To the east we see

Androscoggin River and across Pinkham

Notch rises the grand Carter Dome with

Wildcat Range to the right. A little to the

south is a great view of Saco Valley, North

Conway, Intervale Range and Sandwich

Range, with the beautiful peaks of Chocorua,

Pangus, Passaconaway, Whiteface, Tripyra-

mid, and Sandwich Dome.

When the house bell rings we pile back into

the cars. The brakie gives something that

passes for a highball and we start down back

ward. The engineer uses stopping steam

while the brakes are set on both engine and

cars.

Courtesy Mount Washington Cog Railway.

TRAINS 30 JUNE

From the collection ot H. S. Walker, 10 Winthrop Ave., Marblehead. Mass.

Generally, in the course of a round trip,

one takes five different trains. Three are

kept shuttling back and forth on the moun

tain at once due to a lack of sidings. However,

this time it is different. Along the entire

trestle runs a telephone line. As no train is

waiting the brakeman gets off with a portable

phone box, attaches the transmitter, cranks

the handle and receives orders to proceed to

Waumbek Tank.

Those riding the rear platform have by this

time been liberally showered with cinders.

Since I have no use for a seat on any trip like

this, I get my fair share of dirt.

The railroad also handles small quantities

of supplies to the summit. On the ascent we

carried a sack of mail, three suitcases and a

crate of strawberries.

In due course the Ammonoosuc is recrossed

and we stop at Base Station. The fireman

looks very much like a young Ammonoosuc

himself after keeping the fire going to the

tune of shoveling a whole ton of coal during

the ascent.

P^irst of the locomotives was old Peppersass,*

which had an upright boiler swung on

trunnions; there was no cab. Invented by

Sylvester Marsh, it was built by Campbell &

Whittier, Boston, in 1886. The George Steph

enson was the second, built by Walter Aiken

at Franklin, N. H., with an upright boiler, one

cog wheel and a pair of cylinders. Aiken then

built four more. After they had run a few

years Aiken redesigned them, fitting horizon

tal boilers and an extra pair of cylinders.

Sidtt-s. the eighties.in

Trains and passengers pose by the summit hotel

during the great travel boom of the late nine

teenth century. Below is first No. 5, Cloud, built

by Walter Aiken in 1870 with upright boiler and

two10"xl6"

cylinders; rebuilt at Manchester in

1876 with horizontal boiler and four8"

x12"

cylinders. It was scrapped after a fire in 1895.

"-

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~~"

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. A M

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:'

H. S. Walker collection.

Peppersass has long since been discarded, buta likeness of it was built in the twenties for

publicity purposes. This second Peppersass

ran off the trestle in 1929.

Names of locomotives in the early days

were very interesting. There was Hero (Peppersass was its nickname), George Stephen

son, Eagle. Hercules, Atlas, Cloud, Tiptop,

trains 31 JUNE

Top, H. S. Walker collection; left, Lincoln Warren, Howe PI., Bronxville, N. Y.; right, Jim Morley, Etna St., Berkeley, Calif.

Locomotives nave tipped boilers, or is it a tipped frame?

So that the water level will be properly maintained throughout the journey, boilers are mounted to

run horizontally on inclined track; on level track they nose down. Summit is one of the modern engines,

relatively speaking. Notice hose for water supply. Below are two views of trains crossing Ammon

oosuc River just above Marshfield. Trees have been cleared at either side of the tracks to allow a better

view until timber line is reached. Since there is a dearth of sidings on the line, passengers are relayed

from train to train as they make the climb, each train doing shuttle service like the subway between

Grand Central Station and Times Square, but of course slower, steeper, and much more scenic. Engines

include such modern touches as the turbo-generator for car lighting, but still have ancient brass domes.

TRAINS Q2 JUNE

Falcon, and Pilgrim. Al

though most of these were

built with two cylinders,

many were converted with

four, and the size of the cyl

inders decreased at the

same time. Peppersass had8"xl2"

cylinders and

Stephenson10"

x16"

cylin

ders. All the four-cylinder

engines had8"

x12"

cylin

ders. When this rebuilding

was made the boilers were

all changed from vertical to

horizontal. Most of the con

version work was done at

Manchester in the late sev

enties. In 1895 there was a

great fire in Lyndonville

Shop of the Boston & Maine

Railroad, and Eagle, Atlas,

Cloud, and Falcon, which

were in this shop for repairs,

were destroyed. Eagle and

Cloud, were scrapped and

the others rebuilt and re

numbered so that the roster

after 1895 was: Peppersass,

Falcon, Atlas, Hercules, No.

4, No. 5, Tiptop, No. 7, Pil

grim, No. 9 all with8"

x

12"

cylinders.

No. 4 and No. 5 were in

teresting because they came

from the Green Mountain

Railway. This was an even

steeper cog road located on

M o u n t Desert Island in

Maine. It ran from Eagle

Lake to a hotel on the top

of Green Mountain (now

called Cadillac Mountain) .

Rails were bolted directly

to the rocks on this railroad.

It started operating in 1883,

but was strangled by lack of

business before 1895.

Present engines are tiny

0-4-0 types which have hor

izontal boilers tilted forward

to keep the water more or

less level and to prevent the

fire from spilling out of the

fire box while climbing.

They are compound engines

Top and bottom, courtesy Boston & Maine; center, H. S. Walker collection.

Mount "Washington events.

Autos can drive right to Base Station or to Marshfield, where there

are stores, night accommodations and a view of the mountain. Topview shows start of trip; the Ammonoosuc is crossed just beyond the

building. Center picture shows early construction train pushed byAtlas on Jacob's Ladder. Notice white top hats! Below, passengers

change cars at Gulf Tank. Gulf Tank is named for a great ice-worn

chasm called Great Gulf just a few feet north of the track. Water

for the tank must be pumped at great pressure from streams below.

TRAINS 33 JUNE

with two cylinders on each

side, each cylinder operating

one of the drivers which, in

turn, drive the big cog

mounted on an axle under

the chassis. Despite the huge

inverted-bowl-like screens

atop the stacks, some sparks

get by.

It may be a cinch being a

fireman on a modern line-

haul locomotive, but not on

this road. The tallow pot

wields a No. 4 banjo as hard

as he can swing it for about

70 minutes. The coal leaves

the scoop and is burned,

seemingly, without touching

the bed. Soot is blown up

the stack under terrific pres

sure.

'"TT'he Mount Washington

*-

Railway preceded by

over a decade the great

number of scenic railroads

built in the eighties. Con

struction was started in 1886

and it was opened to the

summit three years later in

July. For a while there was

no connection between Base

Station and the railroads of

the rest of the country, but

in 1876 a branch line of the

Boston, Concord & Montreal

Railroad was built from

Fabyan to Bay Station, 6.70

miles, with a grade of about

250 feet to the mile. (Its

construction was authorized

in 1869) . This was operated

with a little Mogul, No. 29,

named Mount Washington.

When the railroad became

part of the Concord & Mon

treal in 1890 the engine was

renumbered 82, but five

years later the Boston &

Maine leased the line and

again changed the number,

to 782. Service between

Fabyan and Base Station

was abandoned officially in

1932.

H. S. Walker collection.

In days or old.

Above, the second Peppersass was built for publicity purposes as a

copy of the first locomotive on the cog road. Fate didn't favor the

idea, or perhaps Peppersass I haunted the scene, and P II tumbled

over a trestle in July, 1929. Center, Mount Washington, a standard

gauge Mogul used to do shuttle service between Base Station, shown

here, and Fabyan, where it connected with Maine Central. Bottom,

an early train at the very same point where the bottom pictures on

page 32 were taken. Notice lack of vertical curves at this early date.

TRAINS 34 JUNE


cJiir anqels didn't operate the "Railway to

theClouds''

but they surely must have kept

close watch over it. for the Mount Washington

Railway can boast that no passenger was ever

killed or injured while riding the cushions to

the summit of New Hampshire's loftiest peak.

Oddly enough the safest, slowest railway ever

built also operated the fastest and most danger

ous newspaper delivery service in the world!

More will be told of this later.

Railroading at 6293 feet above sea level may

be an old story to Rocky Mountain hoggers but

many a tourist has left the base station of the

Mount Washington Railway on a day apparently

made to order for sightseeing, only to find his

train actually chugging and clanking its way

through a low-lying cumulus curtain which

effectively blocked the 130-mile view he came

to enjoy. Conversely, visitors to the summit are

frequently amazed to find several of New Hampshire's higher mountains sticking their tops

above the clouds, and what looked like a foggy

day at the base turns out to be sunny and bright

after a mere train ride of something like three

miles. Either way the weather doesn't bother

Mount Washington hoggers as there are no

grade crossings, junctions, passing sidings or

signals to worry about. And either way the

trip is always worth while for the passengers

as many interesting varieties of flora and fauna,otherwise found only within the arctic regions,

are visible along the right of way.

When Sylvester Marsh, a Littleton, N. H, in

ventor, conceived the world's first and steepest

mountain-climbing cog railway he found the

public skeptical of his brain child and extremely

wary about advancing him the necessary funds.

It if said thai the staid gentlemen of the legis

lature waggishly voted him a franchise to build

a cog railway to the moon, but Marsh quickly

silenced his hecklers by conducting a successful

public demonstration of cog railroading over a

half-mile test track on August 29, 1866. The

gradient on this test section was even steeper

than the 25 per cent average grade planned for

the road itself.

Financially aided by several railroad com

panies. Marsh completed the cog railway in a

little over three years in July, 1869, to be

exact. Three years to lay three miles of track

isn't exactly a record but one must remember

that, with the exception of the first quarter

mile, the track was not laid on the usual cinder

or stone ballast but was supported by a contin

uous timber trestle varying in height from two

feet above ground level most of the way to some

20 feet on "Jacob'sLadder,"'

at which point the

ruling grade was 36.6 per cent. In addition to

this the track gangs had three rails to lay in

stead of the usual two, for between the running

rails was the"cograil"

or"rack"

to which

Marsh's mountain-climbing railway owed its

success. This cograil consisted of two parallel

lengths of angle iron spaced about ZV2 inches

apart and connected to each other every 2V2

inches with sturdy pieces of round steel bar,

thus forming a rack into which the gears be

neath the locomotives meshed securely. As the

gears were independently connected to the

cylinders it was possible to drive the locomotive

up the steepest grade even though the drivers

themselves were spinning on slippery rail.

(Jiff 1 eppenass, the original Mount Washington

locomotive, had an upright boiler somewhat like

the Baltimore & Ohio's Atlantic but the simi

larity ended there, because builders Aiken,

Campbell and Whittier hung the boiler from a

pivot arrangement which permitted it to remain

vertical regardless of variations in the track

grade. On top of that the old girl made a noise

like no other engine in the world. It was this

noise, the constant, monotonous clatter-clatter

of the ratchet, which gave the Mount Washing

ton its 100 per cent safety record, for these

gears engaged the rack of the center rail, thus

making it possible to hold a train motionless at

any point regardless of slippery track conditions

and independent of the other braking systems

While later engines substituted a horizontal

boiler, raised slightly at the firebox end so as

to remain approximately level on the steep

grade, the rack and pinion has survived.

In actual operation the locomotive pushed

one single-truck car at a time to the summit.

the trip taking about 75 minutes. Starting at

the base station, the train made a stop for pas

sengers at Marsh-Field (said to be the smallest

ticket office in the world) then continued to

Coldspring Hill, where an operating stop was

made. Soon after crossing Jacob's Ladder

timber line was passed and a variety of inter

esting arctic flowers were apparent. After a

second stop at Gulf Tank the train chugged bythe Lizzie Bourne monument, a rough stone

cairn, and finally arrived at the summit. The

return trip, during which the locomotive backed

slowly down in front of the car, took only five

minutes less than the ascent. Car and locomo

tive were never coupled, the idea being that

Trains, June 1946 29

the car could be stopped independently should

there be any locomotive brake failure.

For many years a small newspaper containing

the names of visitors to the summit and other

scintillating chatter was published on Mount

Washington and delivered daily to the hotels

at the base. It was this paper. Among the Clouds,

which frequently provided employees of the

cogroad the opportunity for a more rapid

descent of the mountain than usual. This was

done by the use of"slideboards"

or"shingles,"

toboggan-like gadgets about a yard long and

12 inches wide. These shingles fitted over the

cograil and slid down at roller-coaster speed,

controlled only by friction brakes which the

rider gripped (no doubt tightly!) in a manner

similar to the handholds on a regulation to

boggan. In order to deliver Among the Clouds

to the base station in time to be perused over

breakfast coffee the paper was frequentlycarried down the mountain by slideboard at

60 miles an hour. The all-time record made byPatrick Camden was two minutes and 45 seconds

for the three mile run.

The use of the slideboard was finally banned

after several employees were seriously injured

and another killed while "runningextra."

Slide-

boarding also caused the tragic death of two

19-year-old schoolboys who attempted a roller-

coaster descent of the mountain on a shingle

made of old ties roped together. The impromptu

device ran wild and jumped the track on Jacob's

Ladder, plunging to the rocks below.

In 1904 Old Peppersass disappeared from view

and was generally forgotten. Nearly 25 years

later she was"discovered"

in the B&O station

at Baltimore by Guy Robert, an amateur his

torian of Whitefield, N. H.

On July 20, 1929, a gay homecoming com

plete with bunting and speeches was arranged.

and B&M President George Hannaur formally

presented the 63-year-old engine to the State

of New Hampshire, represented by Governor

Tobey. At the conclusion of the ceremonies

Old Peppersass, fortunately running light, again

clanked and puffed her way to the summit.

The faithful old gal made her run to the

top assmoothlyr

as ever but had barely started

her return trip down the mountain when some

thing threw her out of mesh with the cograil

and she began to pick up speed.

The crew tried unsuccessfully to stop Pep

persass by using the hand brakes but were

forced to jump, leaving the historic locomotive

to run wild down the steep grade, carrying with

her Daniel Rossiter. a photographer who was

killed. Why Rossiter failed to join the birds with

the members of the crew is unknown. When he

did jump from the tender the runaway was

already on the 325 foot long Jacob's Ladder

and ready to leave the rails herself.

Peppersass was hauled from Burt's Ravine

(named for the founder of Among the Clouds)nine days after the accident, completely rebuilt

and returned to the B&O.

During the war service was suspended but

the railway is again in operation this year.

Motorists from all parts of the country are con

verging on the base station for a restful journey

up New England's most unique railroad.

MM*

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If you have an old stereo viewer try it wiih the photo on the opposite page showing Peppersass or its twin brother at

work before ihe line was opened in 1869. Above, approaching the summit the trains pass great chasms called gulfs.

Below, Jacob's Ladder, a trestle 20 feet high and 325 feet long, is considered the most spectacular part of the long climb.

Trains, June 1946 31


JACOB'S UDDER

HALFWAY HOUSE

MARSHFIELD

PASSENGER

STATION

AT 2 MILES FROM

BASE STATION,LINE HAS CLIMBED

2380 FT

1510 FT AT I'/i MILES

810 FT AT 1 MILE

MILE

BASE

ELEVATION 2520 FT

SHOPS, SHED,BUNKHOUSE, ETC

ABANDONED

RAILROAD

7 MILES TO

BRETTON WOODS

DASHED LINE IS TRACK PLAN IN PERSPECTIVE

AT AN ELEVATION OF 2500 FEET ABOVE SEA

LEVEL; VERTICAL LINES ARE fe MILE APART

BY S. S. WORTHEN

Photographs by Jim Shaughnessy

the Moon. Nevertheless, Sylvester got

his charter for his railroad to the top

of Mount Washington, plus one to

climb Mount Lafayette, just for good

measure.

The public was just as incredulous.

Money could not be raised for the un

dertaking, so Sylvester paid for the

construction of a short stretch of track

on Cold Spring Hill and for a full-

scale locomotive. There (near the

present Marshfielcl station) on Au

gust 29, 1866, he confounded the unbe

lievers with considerable success. His

basic patent covering the rack-rail

locomotive and special track is dated

September 10, 1861.

The practical demonstration of

Sylvester's idea prompted the general

public to investigate the scheme; a

company was formed and Sylvester

was elected president. Construction

continued rapidly through 1867 to the

extent of one mile. By 1868 the line

39

TRANSFER TABLE at the cnginchousc moves all cars

and locomotives in and out. The railway will soon go mod

ern with a company-built aluminum, roller-bearing car.

PASSING requires moving seven pieces of track and

throwing two switches. No. 8 waits in the hole near a

Waumbek water tank after downbound train has passed.

,^...

had passed beyond the tricky con

struction of Jacob's Ladder, and a for

mal opening to this point was cele

brated on August 14, 1868. The 4-foot

7-inch-gauge line crept upward to the

6293-foot summit in the spring of

1869, and in July the contractors de

clared it finished at a total expendi

ture of $150,000. The waiting list of

distinguished visitors and world trav

elers was headed by President Grant

and his family, who rode serenely to

the top on the world's first cog line to

enjoy the unsurpassed view for a

hundred miles in all directions.

The 31 i-mile railroad was supported

almost entirely on wooden trestle-

work, and much of this timber was cut

from the lower slopes of the mountain.

Ox teams hauled the timber and other

supplies to the base camp. Materials

from iron foundries were brought bythe White Mountains Railroad to Lit

tleton, N. H, and the remaining 22

hard miles were over a dirt road. The

actual right of way of the line con

sisted of rails laid on standard rail

road ties. These ties were carried on

longitudinal timbers, shored up with

shims and braces. On the upper

heights of the line there is no footingon the rocky slopes, which makes a

trestle-type of roadbed most suitable.

The present-day appearance of the

line is probably not much different

fiom that of 80 years ago.

Jl he first locomotive operating on

Sylvester's patented right of way was

an upright-boilere-er curiosity various

ly known as Peppersass, Peppersauce,

Hero, or just plain No. 1. The large

upright boiler was thought to resem

ble a cruet which sometimes contained

a condiment called peppersauce

hence the unusual name. The boiler

was truly vertical and hung on trun-

ions which allowed it to remain level

while climbing the varying grades on

the mountain. The boiler could devel

op 45 horsepower at 50 pounds steam

pressure and was wood-fired. It had

no reverse mechanism and could not

run backward under its own power

when on the level. A woodbox tender

was mounted on the same frame as

the boiler, and the rear wheels under

the tender were larger than the lead

ing wheels, which made the engine

nose forward slightly when it was on

the level.

The whole contraption was pro

pelled by two cylinders placed hori

zontally on each side of the boiler and

bolted to the engine frame. These

connected with a crank shaft working

forward, which was geared directly to

two large gear wheels on the same

shaft as the cog wheel. This cog wheel

and its accompanying special rail was

the whole crux of Sylvester Marsh's

idea.

The engine rode along on the two

outer standard tram rails and simul

taneously the large toothed cog wheel

meshed with the pins in the rack rail

a">d thus the engine literally pulled

itself up the hill in"hand-over-hand"

fashion. The center rack-rail was com

posed of two pieces of angle iron 3

inches wide, placed on their edges

parallel to each other. They were con

nected every 4 inches with strong pins

W-i inches in diameter. The locomotive

pushed a passenger car ahead of it.

The coach was about 25 feet long run

ning on four wheels and was not con

nected to the engine. Instead it had a

roller buffer which allowed free lateral

and vertical motion on the grades.

The engine came down the mountain

in the same position so that there was

no need for turning the train at the

top.

Although Old Peppersass remained

on the line in continuous use for 12

years there came a time when new

engines were required. Walter Aiken

of Franklin, N. H, was most helpful

in developing an improved type. It

was heavier than the 8 tons of Pepper

sass and surpassed her modest cost of

$15,000. The engines also bore such

mundane names as Cloud, Atlas and

George Stephenson.

By the time the wonderful moun

tain railroad had been completed, the

thriving Boston, Concord & Montreal

Railroad completed purchase of the

White Mountains Railroad to Little

ton, N. H. Straightaway it constructed

a line to Bretton Woods in Crawford

Notch. From this point a line of rail

way was completed some 7 mi'es to

the Base Station at the foot of Mount

Washington. This distance was very

heavily graded, and a Mogul locomo-

40 July 1956

OLD PEPPERSASS stands proudly by while a younger

worker waits with the morning train at Marshfield. A ton

of coal and 1000 gallons of water are used on an ascent.

UP AND OVER goes Ammonoosuc with a load of passen

gers. Highest wind velocity ever recorded was here on

Mount Washington in April 1934 231 miles an hour.

tive No. 29 was ordered by the

Boston, Concord & Montreal from the

Manchester Locomotive Works of

Manchester, N. H. For many years

this locomotive hauled the two open

coaches and the combination open

passenger-baggage car loaded with

patrons for the cog railway.

The second type of cog locomotive

was built with an enclosed cab

but retained the upright boiler. A

later and longer-lasting modification

was the horizontal boiler, tilted for

ward at about 10 degrees to the level

of the rail, thus keeping the water-

level in the boiler over the crownsheet

at ail times. Two more cylinders and

an additional cog wheel on an ad

ditional rear axle make up the

mechanical changes which are appar

ent on today's engine.

The location of the right of way is

most direct. Literally, it begins at

the bottom of the mountain and ends

at the top. The locomotive and car

sheds and shops are located about

one eighth of a mile below Marshfield,the passenger station at the foot of the

mountain. Coaches and engines are

housed in stalls in the sheds and

moved in and out on a transfer table.

A short stretch of service track leads

to the coaling platform and the water

plug, and thence up a short, sharp

grade to the comparative level stretch

in front of Marshfield station.

Once the coach is loaded with 48

revenue passengers, the train starts

thundering up the trestle at about 2li

miles an hour. Passing over the Am

monoosuc River, the steep grade up

Cold Spring slows the train to 1.75

miles an hour and leans the passengers

back in their seats. At a distance the

train sounds like the Pennsylvania

crossing the Alleghenies. After ne

gotiating a slight curve to the right,

the track heads up the 30 per cent

grade to Waumbek Tank.

You find there is a siding at this

point, and after taking on a tankful

of water the train may take the sid

ing. If you should happen to ride the

first train up in the morning at 9 a.m.

you would continue on up around a

shoulder of the mountain, slightly to

the right again, and at the 4600-foot

level you would pass the Halfway

House, now a tumbled-down shanty

beside the track. As you swing around

to the left you can see the spidery legs

of Jacob's Ladder above, and it is not

too long (even at 2 miles an hour) be

fore you are struggling onto the ap

proach.

This is the most impressive part

of the whole trip. In order to negoti

ate a slight ravine and attain the flank

of the mountain at a higher level the

railway is built on a wooden trestle

about 30 feet high and ascending a

gradient of 36.6 per cent simultane

ously. It is about 200 feet long and

lifts the train 1 foot (13% inches to be

exact) for every 3 feet of distance.

The trestle was destroyed, together

with much of the exposed trackwork,

during the famous hurricane of 1938,

and the cost of renewing about 1 mile

of line was half the original cost of

the whole line.

Clinging to the northeast side of

the peak, the railway winds along the

ridge overlooking the Great Gulf, a

rocky chasm some 2000 feet deep.

Gaining comparatively level ground

on the northeast portion of the moun

tain, the railway turns southwest, and

with a final steep ascent, puffs to a

stop beside the Summit House. Later

on, the departure of the train is sig

naled by the ringing of an old loco

motive bell.

One of the most interesting features

of the trackwork is the siding arrange

ment. Although the line is single-

tracked all the way, there are two

dead-end sidings which are used to al

low upbound trains to pass down-

bound trips. In order to take the sid

ing it is necessary to move seven

pieces of track and change two

switches. Then when the up train is

in the clear the down train proceeds

over the switch at a very low speed.

Sometimes when two trains meet at

one of the platforms at Waumbek

Tank or Sky Line, the passengers

change trains and the trains reverse

their journeys.

Although mountain climbers have

perished in the unseasonable moun

tain storms as recently as 1932 the

railroad has operated from 1869 with

but a single fatality. In 1929 during a

celebration of the 60th anniversary of

its age Old Peppersass was refur-

Trains 41

&

bished and was operated for the bene

fit of visitors and the press. It oper

ated so well that it was taken up the

mountain to a much higher point than

had been planned originally. As it

return journey carrying some report

ers and photographers a tooth in the

single cog wheel broke and caused

this cog gear to jump out of the rack

rail. The accident happened so unex

pectedly that the safety devices could

not be used. Warned by the shouts

of the engineer all the passengers

started down the steep grade on its jumped off safely before the locomo-

THE BELL on the roof of the Summit House (elevation 6288 feet) announces

departures of the trains. Here at the top clouds are in close proximity.

WORK EXTRA in the hands of No. 9 Waumbek drops down from the topbetween traffic to the "home

stretch,"

just below the top, for some track work.

MEET AT SKY LINE: Nos. 4 and 6 went into the hole for No. 8, blasting

up the mountain. Occasionally trains trade passengers, reverse directions.

tive had attained a breakneck speed.

Unfortunately, a photographer who

was riding in front of the tender did

not hear the shouts and did not

jump. When the old locomotive leaped

off the track at a sharp curve he was

carried to his death in the depths of

the Great Gulf. The locomotive stands

today at Marshfield station, where it

was reassembled after the accident.

In the normal year about 35,000

passengers are pushed up the hill. The

rolling stock and locomotives are in

excellent condition. The trip takes

about 1 hour 10 minutes, but passen

gers may spend as much time as theylike on the top and upper slopes of

the mountain. Safety is of course a

prime consideration, and four sep

arate devices are used to control the

train's speed. Large friction brakes,controlled by a governor and a hand

brake wheel, are installed on the

coaches. These brakes act either au

tomatically or under the control of the

brakeman. The locomotives operate

backward down the mountain so that

the admission of steam to the cylinders

acts as an auxiliary brake. On the

locomotive driving axles there is a

"dog-and-ratchet"

device which could

be made to stop the engine and coach

at once. Two similar devices are placed

on the two coach axles.

Two of the seven locomotives were

acquired from the cog railway which

ran up Cadillac Mountain at Bar Har

bor, Me., many years ago. The re

mainder were purchased by the com

pany. There were nine in all, named

and numbered as follows: No. 1:

Mount Washington; No. 2: Ammo-

noosuc; No. 3: Base Station; No. 4:

Summit; No. 5: Became No. 3, later

was scrapped; No. 6: Great Gulf; No.

7: Scrapped; No. 8: Tip Top; No. 9:

Waumbek.

The coaches are not named but car

ry the numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 7 and 9.

The color scheme is light gray on the

sides with grass-green trim. The lo

comotives retain their black boilers,with aluminum smokeboxes and

stacks. The cab panels are bright red

with the name of the engine in gold.

The four-wheel tenders are green

with bright-red side and rear panels

matching the cab panels. On the sides

of the tender appears the title

MT. WASHINGTON COG RAILWAY with the

number in the same yellow on the rear

panel.

The whole remarkable operation

prompted President Grant to remark

that "man seems so small when you

look at theUniverse."

A more per

tinent comment came from P. T. Bar-

num. He, with great deference, ad

mitted that it was "the second greatest

show onearth."


STEAM IN INDIAN SUMMER 12

at sea level and 6288 feet up

respects to the beetle-browed power of Grand Trunk and takes a chilly ride

into the clouds behind a snorting bone-shaker of a geared 0-2-2-0

Grand Trunk No. 17 Crosses Swing Bridge at Mouth of Back Cove, Me.

Do not pass up except under most unavoidable conditions.

Trains 23

STEAM IN

INDIAN S

2-10-2's that had "drag engine" written all over them when it might better

have emulated CPR's success with

Selkirk 2-10-4's. But most of the

money went for versatile Mountains

and Northerns, free-steaming jobswith drivers of liberal dimension and

lenient axle loading.The engine we watched in Portland,

the 6017, was one of the first a Ca

nadian Locomotive Company productof 1923. Actually, she was not a heavy

engine. With an engine weight of

355,570 pounds, the 6017 rode the

scales at little more than a lightU.S.R.A. 4-8-2 and less than a New

York Central Hudson. Yet she con

cealed this fact nay, she Eliza Doo-

littled her inadequacy of specificationinto an appearance of tremendous

power and ferocity by merely dotingon details.

Such as what? Well, first and fore

most, an Elesco feedwater heater

lending what Al Kalmbach once cited

as the overbearing "John L. Lewis

brow" and giving to a locomotive, I

think, that look of concentration that

a frown gives you or me. Outboard

bearings on the engine truck lent a

touch of excitement, too somewhat

the same racy leaning-into-it appearance the same design gave the nearby4-8-2's of Central Vermont and the

Milwaukee Road F-6 Hudsons. Add

an offset bell behind the steam dome,a Delta trailing truck, an all-weather

Pullman cab, and a big 12-wheel tank,

and you have quite a hunk of 4-8-2.

Canadian National followed the

some tremendous pattern on all of its

early 4-8-4's, the afore-mentioned

2-10-2's, and certain Mikes. More

modern power may have been cleaned

up in over-all design, but it lost the

huge look. Unfortunately, too.

The 6017 had very little to be

ferocious about that September morn

ing . . . just a bit of head-end revenue,

a coach, and a parlor car on a leisure

ly schedule (9 hours 50 minutes for

294.9 miles) to Montreal. At 8:20 a.m.

she eased off, sauntered along Port

land's waterfront, eased onto the low

trestle and swing bridge across the

mouth of Back Cove, then struck out

across Maine for the Dominion. Has

tings and I were, sad to relate, road-

bound. I would have enjoyed riding

No. 17, otherwise. The sight of smoke

drifting back past coach window glassis a rare, rare thing these days much

too rare to pass up except under the

most unavoidable conditions. Say, an

important appointment.Which we had up the pike at Dan

ville Junction. There, standing in the

clear and in weeds, was a gentle Baldwin Mike of pre-World War I con

struction, the 3432. Coupled behind

was a graceful, wooden-sheathed, 12-wheel combine. That constituted the

mixed-train connection for Lewiston,

Me., IV2 miles distant. Like the steam

engine that hauled it, this schedule

was living on borrowed time; todayyou ride a bus.

Study Hastings' photographic evi

dence of this connection at Danville

Junction the waiting mixed, the

mainline train comin' round the bend,

passengers and bystanders moving up

as the 4-8-2 comes striding in with all

of the authority of the Lark in San

Jose. As late as World War II this

kind of activity happened all over the

U. S. and Canada in scores of remote

and unremarked junctions. But nos

talgia, even purest Americana, is no

match for rising costs and authors of

annual reports.

After all, you can't make any coin

running a Mike, a combine, and a full

crew lv-i miles with four or five pa

trons and a box or two of express, justas you can't find a fairer scene in rail

roading than Danville Junction as

haughty No. 17 steams in to make con

nection with the lowly mixed for

Lewiston.

o>ome wise man has said that the

fundamental of layman concern for

the railroad is not the steam locomo

tive nor the metropolitan terminus

nor even the romance of the names

stenciled on 744,000 box cars, but the

very basic fact of the flanged wheel

upon the steel rail. I like that, for it

accounts for a parallel in marginal in

terest in such mechanisms as the sub

way and the el and in those electrified

narrow gauges that go threading a

labyrinth underground to where coal

is dug. It also allows for the 900-series

streetcars that once rocked along

STEAM IS WHERE you find

it, and in July TRAINS we dis

cover it behind a paper mill . . .

at the birthplace of the tomb

stone ... on a dog farm . . .

across the international bound

ary. All manner of steam, too

tank, geared, conventional, live

and dead. Come along with us in

July TRAINS as we look at and

comment on steam in many set

tings and in many strides.

down Preston Street in Louisville and

for the unheralded industrials that

seclude themselves behind the locked

gates and smoky smelters of industry.Also the cog railway, of course

that tourist oddity which discards the

rulebook of ordinary adhesion-type

railroading and really goes uphill,sometimes at the astounding rate of

more than a foot up for each 36 inches

ahead. The one up Pikes Peak dis

posed of its delightful little Baldwins

in favor of buslike diesels before I

got a chance to purchase a ticket, and

as a consequence I did not. But when

Hastings noted that our steam safari

led near Mount Washington, N. H.,and that the summit could be reached

by steam locomotion, I was happy to

sample this unique brand of flanges

(and cogs) on steel rails.

Just to refresh your memory, Mount

Washington is the highest peak in the

northeastern U. S.; a member of the

Presidential Range, Washington rises

to a summit of 6293 feet. The Mount

Washington Railway was opened on

July 3, 1869, and except for cessations

of service in both World Wars, it has

operated continuously ever since.

Jl ake my word for it the ride up

is quite an experience.It is slow . . . the 3/i-mile journey

requires approximately 70 minutes.

It is cold . . . summit temperature

has never exceeded 74 degrees and in

September the climate stifles any

argument the visitor might make

about the claim that the thermometer

once sank to 49 below.

It is well, cinder y . . . Mount

Washington Railway needs air con

ditioning like Electro-Motive needs

blacksmiths, thus quite a bit of the ton

of coal burned on each ascent seeps

inside the coach.

It is noisy . . . each engine has four

cylinders turning over tricycle-size

driving-wheels-plus-cogs, and at 2%

miles per hour the thunder is "Mallets

in the Rockies" and then some, not

to mention the vibration.

It is disarming, not to say outright

Passenger's View of Engine 4 Climbing Jacob's Ladder

Like Electro-Motive needs blacksmiths . . .

Trains 25

STEAM IN

INDIAN SUMMER

frightening ... I was aware that

Mount Washington Railway had suf

fered only a single passenger fatalitysince 1869, that engine and coach are

equipped with several braking de

vices, and that any passenger climbing

3760 feet in 31- miles in anything is

apt to ponder the consequences re

gardless of the odds against them

and yet that one fatality had been a

member of the press, hadn't he?

It is eccentric . . . the gauge is 4 feet

7 inches, the grade hits 36.6 per cent,

the view is extraordinary.

Finally, it is very difficult to ade

quately describe. With a great deal

of huffing and puffing, engine No. 4

Base Station comes roaring up to

the depot at a snail's pace, pushing an

open-platform, 48-seat coach: passen

gers troop aboard: and you're off.

I was first impressed by the engine,

an 0-2-2-0 that looked something like

a mobile sawmill power plant with a

silver smokebox and a huge cab to

mark its calling. The boiler slanted at

10 degrees this to keep the water

MountWashington Engine No. 2 "Ammonoosuc" Approaches Skyline Siding

Now it's off to bi-polars marching over the Bitter Roots.

26 June 1957

over the crownsheet which gave the

little fellow a perpetual appearance of

kneeling, and the locomotive trailed a

ridiculous little four-wheel tender.

And a harder working engine never

held a fire on her grates. Once under

way the coach shakes and vibrates as

No. 4 literally noses against the car

(there are no couplers) and furiously

cogs her way upgrade at 2V? miles

per hour when the grade is easy and

at 1.75 when it is not. The way it

feels, the view . . . oh. well, go there

this summer or next and see, or rather

feel, Mount Washington for yourself.There are scores of incidental mem

ories to be earned watching the crew

throw two switches and move seven

pieces of track each time the train

takes siding to clear the main . . .

leaning way out over hardly anythingat all on Jacob's Ladder (OphirTrestles on Rio Grande Southern were

the only real equivalent for that in my

book) . . . feeling the engine at stops

steam mightily, shove the coach for

ward a mite, then roll back and

joggle to a stop on the brake. Brother!

. . . The feeling at summit of divorce

from the cares of the world, indeed,from the world itself.

Anyway, I've ridden it and I'm

glad. That's one more railroad to be

Approaching Waumbeck Tank

3V4 miles, TO mimttes.

crossed off my list. I suppose any con

firmed train-watcher has such a list.

A ride on a 4-8-4, a reservation on the

Century, the sight of a Shay . . .

Now that "cog railway" is secured,I'm off in planning if not in practice

to ride that Beyer-Garratt in South

Africa, to see the bi-polars marchingover the Bitter Roots, to walk that

loop track under Grand Central.

Where are you bound?


th

Old Peppersass Starts Upgrade for the Last Time

The previous outing was the Fair of the Iron Horse.

Illustrated by the author

Peppersass Follows Camera Train from Base Station

Like an elephant kneeling on its front legs.

the Mount Washington Cog Railway63 years earlier.

Some 500 invitations had been is

sued by the Boston & Maine Railroad,which at the time controlled the cog

railway, and most of the invited were

to be present. Hotel space was at a

premium at Bretton Woods, Fabyanand the Mount Pleasant House.

Gov. Charles W. Toby of New

Hampshire and the governors of the

five other New England states were

Bound for the Top: Five Trains and No. 1

A franchise to run on to the moon?

Trains 47

attending, as were Pres. George Han-

nauer and other high officials of the

Boston & Maine. Special guests of

honor were Mrs. F. Patterson Smith

and Mrs. Carl R. Lindstrom, daughtersof Sylvester Marsh, builder of the

Mount Washington Cog Railway.

My part in the proceedings that daywas as a free-lance cameraman for

Kinograms Newsreel, one of the con

temporary movie news services. My

regular territory was the west coast of

Florida, but in the early part of July1929 I had been visiting my parents at

Rumford, Me., and had observed in an

issue of the Boston Post an item about

the forthcoming railroad celebration

at Bretton Woods. N. H. A query to

the newsreel editor in New York had

resulted in my being assigned to work

with a regular New England staff

man. My equipment included a small

35 mm. spring-wound camera in ad

dition to my regular heavy tripod-mounted machine, so I was designatedto make the so-called pickup and cut-

in shots while the other man made the

general "cover" shots.

I had driven over from Rumford on

the afternoon of the 19th and con

tacted my working partner that eve

ning at the Mount Pleasant House,where fortunately I had made an ad

vance reservation. The next morning

we met in the dining room early to

avoid the rush and to possibly get

ahead of the Pathe, International and

Fox cameramen whom we had seen in

the lobby the previous evening. Rival

ry was strong among newsreel men in

those days, and by prearrangement

with the cog railway management I

was to go to the Base Station early to

make my cut-in close-ups of Pepper

sass as Engineer E. C. Frost ran her

back and forth for my special benefit.

I was particularly anxious to get a

shot of the cogwheel and the rest of

the "works." With my small auto

matic camera mounted between the

rails, I would get a shot of Peppersass

approaching and passing directlyoverhead. Naturally, I did not want to

share my carefully made arrange

ments with my competitors.

We had an early breakfast and

made our getaway from the Mount

Pleasant House. After turning off

Highway 302, a drive of a few minutes

along the road toward the Base Sta

tion of the cog railway brought us past

the golf course and the entrance to the

luxurious Mount Washington Hotel.

As the road turned slightly to the

right, we entered the deep forest,

an area of wondrous woodland beauty

which extended the 5 miles to the

Base. Here and there a chattering

chipmunk scampered across the gravel

road through patches of early morning

sunlight filtering softly down through

the treetops. Faintly in the distance

above the sound of the rushing Am-

monoosuc River nearby we heard the

whistle of a train, definitely Boston &

Maine and doubtless one of the spe

cials brine . guests to the cele

bration.

We passed the intersection of the

cross-mountain road from Jefferson

and Randolph, then after a few more

sharp curves and a final bridge the

road climbed suddenly as we entered

the Marshrield clearing and crossed

the tracks of the B&M mountain

branch from Fabyan Junction.

A few hundred yards ahead and to

our left was a motley array of build

ings: engine and car sheds facing each

other across a short transfer table,

machine shops, and an assortment of

tool and section houses. Directly on

our right was the boarding house for

employees of the cog railway.Smoke was curling lazily upward

from all of the tile-pipe smokestacks

of the enginehouse, for six locomotives

would be working today. Already pas

senger car No. 6 was standing on the

main track by the end of the car shed,and as we scrambled down the pathfrom the road one of the regular road

engines with its inclined boiler, look

ing for all the world like an elephant

kneeling on its front legs, was broughtsidewise along the table into line with

the main track. With a few short,

rapid strokes of its pistons it nudgedits buffer up against the coach, pausedfor a moment, then moved up the

track toward the station above. This

train was to make its regular early

morning trip to the summit carrying a

few employees, supplies for the Sum

mit House, and the morning mail. It

would return to the base around

noontime, well before the exercises

which had been scheduled for 2 p.m.

As we turned our attention toward

the enginehouse again there emerged

slowly from the farthest stall the

weirdest contraption imaginable a

locomotive resembling an ordinarysteam hoisting engine, "with a wheel

barrow on behind." This was Old

Peppersass, the world's first cog rail

way locomotive. Its official name had

been Hero, but a certain Yankee wit,as he noticed that the engine in its

general appearance strongly resem

bled the old peppersauce bottle that

graced the tables of most homes of

the 1860's, is reputed to have re

marked, "Huh! Looks like a pepper

sass bottle, don't she!" The remark

seemed to settle her name once and

for all, and Hero was soon forgotten.We cranked away at the camera as

Peppersass was brought toward us on

the table a striking and appropriate

introduction for her to our movie

audiences.

Peppersass was the brainchild of

Sylvester Marsh, a native of Campton,

N. H. Born in 1803. he was an inventor

who had perfected a number of im

portant devices. While he was on a

visit to the White Mountains in 1852,Marsh conceived the idea of buildinga railroad up Mount Washington. In

1858 the New Hampshire Legislature

granted a charter to him for such a

railroad. One of the legislators pro

posed an amendment allowing him

to continue "on to the moon."

Marsh drew the plans for the loco

motive, which was built in the shops

of Campbell & Whittier of Roxbury,

Mass., and on August 29, 1866, he

demonstrated its operation on a short

section of experimental track on Cold

Spring Hill, near the present site of

the Base Station.

The locomotive consisted of an up

right boiler of 45 horsepower at 50

pounds pressure, hung on trunnions.

which allowed it to swing into a ver

tical position on the steep grades.

There were two cylinders connected

to a crankshaft, on which was a small

gear which meshed with a larger gear

on the cogwheel shaft. This cogwheel

engaged the cograil which was cen

tered between the regular running

rails. There was a system of rugged

friction brakes but reverse compres

sion in the cylinders was the main

means of control in descending the

heavy grades. The locomotive cost

$3000 and in running order weighed8 tons.

Peppersass served faithfully in the

construction of the line up the moun

tain and in regular service until 1881,

when she was retired. At the time of

the Columbian Exposition in 1893 she

was placed on exhibition in Chicago,and in 1904 she was displayed at the

Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St.

Louis.

Subsequently Peppersass came into

the ownership of the Baltimore & Ohio

Railroad, and during 1928 she ap

peared at the Fair of the Iron Horse

near Baltimore, Md. It was at this

time that the Boston & Maine, which

by then controlled the Mount Wash

ington Cog Railway, conceived the

idea of bringing her back to her na

tive environment in New Hampshire.As a means of publicizing the rail

road, a gala celebration was plannedon the occasion of the 60th anniver

sary of its opening. The grand climax

would be reached as Peppersass made

a final climb "to the clouds" before be

ing placed on permanent exhibition at

the Bretton Woods station.

As the memorable relic was

brought toward us we noticed the

highly polished brasswork, black and

silver paint of the boiler and other

48 July 1959

mechanical parts, and the bright red

and green paint of the high-sided

tender which had the name peppersass

proudly displayed on each side. The

engine had been recently brought

from the B&M shops at Concord, N. H,

where no efforts had been spared in

restoring her to her original condi

tion.

After a brief word of greeting from

Engineer E. C. Frost and Fireman

W. I. Newsham, who were in charge of

Peppersass this day, we climbed

aboard and moved on up the track to

a point just below the slanting trestle

over the Ammonoosuc stream. On the

way we passed workmen who were

putting the final touches of decoration

on a little sectionhouse on the north

side of the track, erecting a speaker's

platform in front, and arranging chairs

for the spectators. Here at 2 p.m.

would take place the formal exercises

immediately preceding Peppersass'

last climb.

I dismounted from the engine with

my equipment, then clambered down

under the trestle to a point where I

could just reach up through the tim

bers and secure the small automatic

camera to a crosstie between the rails.

Engineer Frost brought Peppersass

slowly onto the trestle and stopped so

that I could check clearance between

the camera and the pinion gears and

cogwheel. Then he backed down the

track a distance and at my signal came

forward as I poked my head up far

enough between the crossties to check

my composition through the view

finder and start the camera motor. I

ducked down quickly before the loco

motive passed directly overhead,

clearing the camera by scant inches

and showering me with a mixture of

ashes and hot water. The resulting

picture was quite effective; and owingto subsequent happenings of the day,the workings of the gears and cog

wheel proved to be of considerable

significance.

The morning was passing rapidly,and since we were due at the Mount

Washington House for lunch at 11:45

I completed my morning filming of

Peppersass with close-ups of whistle

blowing, details of the crossheads and

connecting rods, and a shot of Engineer Frost at the controls.

.Luncheon in the main diningroom at the Mount Washington was a

gay affair, attended by all the im

portant guests. There was the usual

friendly bantering at the press table,from which we excused ourselves

early in order to set up our camera

outside to film the departure from the

hotel of the governors' party aboard

an old Crawford Coach which in years

gone by had transported hundreds of

Peppersass Crosses Ammonoosuc River Trestle

The original price tag was $3000.

Underneath: Cogwheel at Right Engaged Rack

Disengagement spelled tragedy minutes away.

Last View of Peppersass Before Fatal Plunge

For unknown reason the B&M man didn't jump.

Trains 49

passengers to the cog railway. Todaythe historic old vehicle took the dignitaries to the station of the B&M

mountain branch, then two heavilyloaded and gaily decorated open cars

took the party to the cog road station

at the Base.

Exercises commenced promptly at

2 p.m. immediately in front of the lit

tle sectionhouse and they included

brief speeches by officials of the Bos

ton & Maine and the Baltimore & Ohio.

followed by Governor Toby, who in

behalf of the State accepted Peppersass for the recreational interests of

New Hampshire.At the conclusion of the exercises

the old locomotive, having been duly

eulogized and "christened." took her

place at the rear of the parade of

trains which were to carry the official

party and guests to the Summit. Im

mediately preceding Peppersass was

the official press train, consisting of

one of the regular' locomotives, coaches

and a festively decorated trailer car

behind. We movie and still photogra

phers set up our equipment in the lat

ter to photograph Peppersass as she

brought up the rear.

The small trailer car, which was

regularly used to transport baggageand supplies up the mountain, had

rather high sides and was coupled to

the rear (down-mountain end) of the

locomotive by a single slender cou

pling link. To my knowledge there

were no brakes of any sort on this car,

and with 10 or 12 men and their heavymovie equipment occupying it, we

were facing hazards which were typi

cal of our profession in those days.With all the trains fully loaded the

procession started, amid the din of

the whistles of all six locomotives. The

cameras ground away at Peppersass

as she gallantly dug her toes into the

increasing grade over the Ammonoo

suc River trestle and started up Cold

Spring Hill.

Upward we climbed with the loco

motive of each conventional train and

the relic blasting a column of smoke

high into the summer sky as the pro

cession mounted the shoulder of the

Hill approaching Waumbek Tank.

Here each of the trains paused brieflyto take water before proceeding to

ward the hardest part of the climb

ahead.

When the watering was accom

plished, the trains moved onward to

ward the halfway station. Everything

was going according to plan. By this

time the trains had become widely

separated because of the time re

quired for each to take water at

Waumbek. Peppersass and the cam

era train were considerably in the

rear owing to the low gearing of the

old locomotive and to the frequent

stops that were made to afford track-

side photographs and close-up run

ning shots.

As the cavalcade approached the

maximum grade of 36.6 per cent on

Jacob's Ladder, it was agreed that

Peppersass would not be called upon

to stop or start for any further photo

graphs and that the next stop would

be at Gulf Tank just above the Lad

der, where the track leveled out near

the brink of the Great Gulf ravine

with its precipitous drop of over 2000

feet down the side of Mount Clay.

By the time the climb up Jacob's

Ladder had been successfully negoti

ated and Peppei-sass had arrived at

Gulf Tank, only a short distance from

the Summit, it was past midafternoon.

It was decided that the regular trains

of guests and the camera train should

proceed to the Summit, but that be

cause of Peppersass' slower speed she

should start back down the mountain

from this point in order not to delaythe other trains in their descent to the

Base in time for the Governor's ban

quet scheduled at the Mount Wash

ington House that evening.The camera train waited at Gulf

Tank a few extra moments while I got

off and clambered over the rocks to a

point of vantage from which I made a

shot of Peppersass just as she started

toward the top of the Ladder and dis

appeared slowly behind a shoulder of

the mountain. This was beyond a

doubt the last photograph ever taken

of the old locomotive in action.

We resumed our journey to the

Summit, only a short distance away,

where we found the five precedingtrains standing along the platformand the guests milling around the

immediate area. After a few pictureswere taken, the passengers reboarded

the trains; since the photographers'

assignments on the mountain were

complete, we each stowed our gear

and climbed aboard the various trains.

Having lingered over a cup of

coffee in the lunchroom of the Sum

mit House, I boarded one of the last

trains to depart. There were no pass

ing tracks on the Mount Washington

Cog Railway in those days, so the first

train up the mountain had to be the

last one down. I was chatting with

Governor Toby as the train started

and we continued our conversation as

we approached the section of track

which ran parallel with the carriageroad for a short distance. There were

numerous vehicles and a lot of hikers

along here and we waved back and

forth.

Our train stopped a short distance

above the platform at Gulf Tank be

cause there were several other trains

ahead taking water, and for a time we

took no particular notice of the delay.Since the sun was about to set some

of the passengers got out of the car to

enjoy the view. Most of us remained

aboard, content to relax after a stren

uous day, paying no special atten

tion to what was going on outside. We

were asked to stay in the cars since

the train might start soon; but it

didn't. A short while later word came

back to us that there would be a

"slight delay" because the track ahead

had been found in a damaged condi

tion. By now it was nearly dark and

some of the passengers were express

ing uneasiness at the prospect of the

train's having to traverse the ques

tionable track in darkness.

About this time one of the trainmen

announced that there had been a

"slight accident" ahead and that our

train would return to the Summit.

Considerable speculation and dis

quiet filled the atmosphere as we re

traced our journey now in total

darkness. The extent of the bad news

was not revealed to us until the train

had reached the mountaintop once

again. Then we were told that Pep

persass had been wrecked near the

foot of Jacob's Ladder, that one man

had been killed and the rest of the

crew seriously injured. Two or three

unauthorized persons had been on the

old engine when it started down the

mountain.

The newspapermen scurried around

asking questions of the passengers as

each succeeding train came back up.

The last one brought the injured men,

who were in great pain. We movie

men could do nothing, for these were

the days before Tri-X film and photo-flood lamps, and none of us had

brought magnesium flares, then neces

sary for night motion-picture photog

raphy. All of us were shocked by the

impact of what had happened, and

presently we were confronted by the

realization that we probably were ma

rooned on the mountaintop for the

night.The first concern was how to get

adequate medical attention for the in

jured men, which meant getting them

to a hospital somehow.In those days there was a fleet of

powerful high-wheeled Winton tour

ing cars which regularly brought pas

sengers up and down the carriage road

from the Glen House in Pinkham

Notch on the east side of Mount

Washington, and although these cars

did not usually attempt a climb up

around the hairpin curves and steep

grades of the mountain road at night,

arrangements were made by telephoneto the garage at the Glen House for

the entire fleet of rugged machines to

proceed to the summit with all possible speed to take the injured to a

50 July 1959

hospital and to carry as many of the

reporters and photographers as pos

sible down the mountain and around

to Bretton Woods.

I shall never forget that ride down

the mountain that night or the trip

back to Fabyan behind the State

Police motorcycle escort. The re

porters sent in their stories by tele

graph and long distance telephone, but

most of the photographers boarded a

late train for Boston. My partner took

our film and headed for New York,

but we agreed that I should remain

and go up the mountain the next

morning on a relief train to the scene

of the wreck.

TLhere is some dispute as to

whether there was an actual witness

to the wreck other than the crew

members and passengers on the en

gine, but from their account it was

determined that as Peppersass started

down the mountain five persons were

aboard: Engineer Frost; Fireman

Newsham; D. H. Pote, a photographer;

Caleb Frost, son of the engineer; and

Daniel Rossiter, official photographerfor the Boston & Maine. As Pepper

sass reached the steepest grade on the

Ladder a cogwheel suddenly became

disengaged from the cograil and came

down on the timbers of the trestle

structure. Prompt attempted applica

tion of the emergency friction brakes

by Frost and Newsham failed to re

tard the increasing speed of Peppersass and she careened wildly down the

steep incline of the Ladder until she

reached the curve at the bottom. Bythis time all the men except Rossiter,who had been riding up on the tender,

had jumped off; for some unknown

reason he remained. As Peppersass

hit the curve traveling at terrific

speed, Rossiter was thrown off, land

ing on the jagged rocks, and was in

stantly killed. Peppersass flew off the

trestle to the right down into Burt's

Ravine and landed about a quarter of

a mile from the trestle, cutting a wide

swath in the trees as she went. It

was here in the midst of a tangle of

trees and rocks that I found her re

mains next morning. Finding enoughof her to photograph was difficult, but

I eventually located her boiler,twisted frame, wheels and the broken

sides of her tender. Thus ended the

festivities of July 20, 1929.

Sometime later the remains of Pep

persass were tenderly gathered up,

and by careful attention and work she

was reconstructed and placed on dis

play at the Base Station at Marshfield,where she can be seen today a

monument to her ingenious inventor,

Sylvester Marsh, but to some of us

old-timers a sad reminder of a gala

day gone wrong. X

Rescuers Stand at Exact Site of Derailment

Announcement of a "slight accident."

Wreckage Lies a Quarter Mile from Derailment Site

Down the mountain in Winton touring cars.

Rescue Party Reaches One Side of Tank

Thus ended festivities of July 20, 1929.

Trains 51


Loring M. Lawrence.

To build a steam locomotive, you need parts...

These three photos, Connecticut Valley Reporter.

...and peopleFrom left: Paul Dunn. Niles LaCoss, and friend.

ing a longer boiler with increased

grate area and larger firetubes on the

frames of the Cog locomotives. Cone

and Dunn agreed that such a boiler

could be built and mounted if the

nose of the smokebox was turned up

to prevent fouling the brake linkage.

Shortly after this assessment, Teague

commissioned D. M. Dillon Steam

Boiler Works of Fitchburg, Mass., to

weld one boiler to his new specifica

tions. The welded boiler was a depar

ture from the riveted construction of

the older boilers, but as Paul Dunn

put it, "No one knows how to rivet

a steam locomotive boiler anymore."The new boiler arrived in 1958 and

waited outside the railway's shop

until 1966, while Teague and the shop

crew struggled to maintain the road's

operational locomotives. Perhaps the

frustration of not having achieved the

mounting of his new boiler forced

Teague to change his plans. In 1966

Teague decided to construct a new

locomotive in his own shops. The

new locomotive would free the rail

way to begin systematic rebuildingof its other locomotives without be

ing caught short of motive power.

Teague ordered a new locomotive

frame from Luken Steel of Coates-

ville, Pa., and pronounced No. 10 an

official railway project.

Unfortunately, Arthur Teague died

in 1967. His plans were clear, how

ever. No. 10 would spring from a set

of blueprints that had lain neglectedin a back room of the shop for 60

years. These prints of the road's

youngest engine, 0-2-2-0 duplexNo. 9, built by Alco-Manchester in

1908, copied the design penned byWalter Aiken about 1875 for Man

chester Locomotive Works. This was

the design of all the railway's opera

tive locomotives; it had steamed

through 80 years of continuous serv

ice. Why change now?

Colonel Teague's new engine would

breathe steam into an old design. A

canted boiler to keep water on the

crown sheet while the locomotive

scales the normal 25 per cent grademeasures 48 inches in diameter and

holds 146 2"x6' firetubes. At 140

pounds, the steam pushes simultane

ously into four 9" x 12" cylinders.These cylinders are mounted in oppo

sition between two 24-inch wheels

on either side of the locomotive and

turn counterbalanced crankshafts at

both ends of the frame by means of

main rods. The crankshafts gear power to the main axles, where a 32-inch

spur gear knuckles into the rack rail

which is spiked in the center of the

4' 8"-gauge track. With a larger boil

er, more than an extra square foot of

grate area (the other engines have 8y2

square feet), and an overall engine-and-tender length of 21' 3", No. 10

weighs a ton more than her 18-ton

Ron Palmquist.

THE INCLINE from the Mt. Washington Cog Railway shops to the coal-loading dock below

Marshfield Base Station is the initial testing ground for No. 10 (above). Reveille at

Marshfield on 10's inauguration day finds her and five sisters ready to push upward (right).

sisters. Her tender, borrowed from

No. 8, packs 746 gallons of water and

a ton of soft coal. No. 10, which has

no superheated steam, feedwater

heater, complex valve gear, or air

brakes (the cog engines have drum

brakes on their crankshafts), claims

America's first full-scale locomotive

a cog engine built by Col. John

Stevens in 1825 as a not-too-distant

The plans for this simple enginewere on the books, but the will to

build No. 10 almost died with Colonel

Teague in 1967. The year was a bad

one for the Cog Railway. Not onlydid its master die but in mid-September a locomotive and a car descendingfrom the summit derailed on an im

properly set switch and stumbled off

a trestle. Eight people were killed.

Obviously, no one gave much thoughtto No. 10; a whole railroad had to be

put back together.The Colonel's widow, Mrs. Ellen

Teague, and the employees who had

kept coming back year after year

showed their loyalty to Arthur

Teague's legacy. In 1968 the employees succeeded in recertifying the rail

road under stiff new state safety re

quirements, and Teague's friends

Paul Dunn and Earl Cone nursed the

No. 10 project along. Over the years

Dunn, assistant vice-president of

B&M, had directed liquidated steam-

locomotive parts and shop equipment

from B&M to the Cog Railway. Cone,

who had retired as chief mechanical

officer of B&M, had joined Teague's

shop crew in 1966 and had helped to

keep the ex-B&M machinery in order;

18-inch and 20-inch lathes and a mill

ing machine had whirred into service,

and Cone had set aside a Pyle Nation

al generator and a Detroit lubricator

for No. 10. The tools and parts were

ready; now they needed a builder.

The builder came in 1968. Niles

LaCoss, a former sawmill operator

and a blacksmith, decided at age 56

that it was time to learn about steam

locomotives. LaCoss hired on as the

railway's full-time master mechanic.

He learned quickly. When you'rearound trains and train people 24

hours a day and you listen, it doesn't

take long to understand their ways

that's how LaCoss sees it. Not onlydid LaCoss assimilate a technical

knowledge of steam railroading, but

he absorbed the dedication the life

time employees felt to Arthur Teagueand his railroad. In 1969, when the

railway celebrated its centennial year

of steam operation, LaCoss and his

crew mounted No. 10's boiler on her

frame and wheels.

Winter blocked further progress on

No. 10. The railway's shop has no

power in the winter because the Cog

Railway generates its own electricitywith a Pelton waterwheel spun bya churning mountain brook and the

brook freezes over between Novem

ber and May. So in mid-October the

shop gang locked No. 10 in the en

ginehouse and abandoned Mt. Wash

ington's gnawing chill for the warmth

of their New England fireplaces.In spring 1970 LaCoss's crew, ready

to assemble No. 10, plowed up to

snowbound Base Station; and after

35 years, Paul Dunn came back to

the Cog Railway to guide No. 10's

construction. All the signs were hope

ful, but a series of everyday mainte-

Richmond Hosley.

nance worries handcuffed the rail

way's mechanics. No. 1 cracked her

frame again; No. 8 had boiler troubles;

No. 2 hardly could crawl up the moun

tain; and No. 4 was catching No. 2's

disease. At the beginning of the sea

son the master mechanic had talked

about loading No. 10's frame on a

flatbed trailer and hauling it 75 miles

to his foundry in Hanover, N. H,

where he hoped to machine, fit, and

balance the running gear and cylinders. However, when No. 2 fell sick,

LaCoss, Dunn, and Cone decided that

2 instead would ride to Hanover for

a complete rebuilding during the win

ter. No. 10 faced another winter in

pieces at the base of the mountain.

If Niles LaCoss had any doubts

about his ability to build a steam

locomotive, they disappeared after

the winter of 1970-1971. A winter's

work on No. 2 was the perfect warm-

up for the master mechanic. He in

stalled new crankshafts, bearings,

pistons, rings, valves, and steam pipeson a new frame; and No. 2 returned

to the rails as the fastest and most

powerful engine on the 1971 roster.

With new confidence plus some

spare time, courtesy of No. 2's strong

performance LaCoss's shop gang

began machining the parts for No.

10's running gear. Again winter caught

up with No. 10's construction, but

this time LaCoss was ready. His crew

had roughed out many of the valves,

pistons, rods, and cylinders, and theyhad jacked No. 10's boiler off her

frame.

No. 10's frame wintered in Hanover

with LaCoss and a young engineerfor the railway, Steve Christy. When

the frame slid from its trailer onto

Trains 43

COL. TEAGUE

MT.WASHINGTON

COG RAILWAY

V ttrurOM>Sdpr ,

^RTTttCK .

Ron Palmquist.

NO. 10 is named after her "father," the late Col. Arthur S. Teague, the cog-railway president who began the locomotive project in 1958.

the rails at Base Station on May 16,

1972, it sported a complete set of cyl

inders, pistons, rods, gears, brakes,and counterbalances. It also showed

off a few personal innovations: Christyhad changed the position of the cylinder cocks so that when the cylinders were cleared the steam would

shoot under the locomotive instead

of onto the feet of bystanders, and

LaCoss had added expandable steel-

mesh exhaust line to absorb the flex

ing of the frame and boiler under dif

ferent temperatures. According to

LaCoss, the work on No. 10's frame

wasn't so difficult. "You just put one

part on another. What you can't buy

you make." Of course, there had been

some tricky moments. Frame bolts

were machined larger than the holes

and then "driven home" with a sledgehammer. "Close tolerances," LaCoss

pointed out, "but that's why we have

micrometers." A job was getting done.

The Cog Railway group itched to

assemble No. 10 during the summer.

LaCoss's crew lowered the boiler on

to the finished frame and installed

arch brick. Dunn escaped from his

office and helped to install flues,

while LaCoss cut, bent, and welded

steam lines between the dome and

cylinders. Throttle, generator, lu

bricator, a borrowed whistle from

No. 4, water lines, smokestack, boil

er jacket, and injectors snapped into

place. Finally, in mid-August, the

shop gang bolted a solid-oak cab, pre-

cut by a local mill, over No. 10's fire

box. Then the boiler was pumped full

of water for hydrostatic tests hard

ly a leak. A bronze builder's plate was

screwed to the smokebox door, and

No. 10 was finished. No one seemed

to mind that her $75,000 price tag was

12 times as much as No. 9's had been

in 1908. The Cog Railway's ledgerswere black, and it had a solution to

its power shortage.

Early in September fireman Robert

Clement fueled No. 8's tender and

tied it in behind No. 10 waiting on

the ready track and smelling of fresh

traditional silver paint on the smoke

box and sunflower stack, black on

the boiler, and green with red and

yellow trim on the cab. When a fun

nel of black haze drifted steadily above

No. 10's spark arrester, and she poppedoff at 140 pounds, engineer-builder

Christy pulled himself onto the right-hand seatbox and wound open the

throttle wheel. Without even breath

ing heavily, No. 10 walked up the 15

per cent grade to the coal bunker at

an easy 4 mph full speed.The next day Dunn wanted to make

sure No. 10 "wouldn't stub her toe"

during her inaugural run planned for

September 24, so Christy and Clement

ran her up to the summit pushingcoach No. 4. Three hours later No.

10 drifted back into Marshfield Sta

tion. She steamed so easily that Clem

ent hardly needed to run the injectors,

and her tender still held several hun

dred pounds of coal. Although Clem

ent saw cold spots in the five-grate

firebox, No. 10 had so much steam

that she popped off even on the steep

37 per cent Jacob's Ladder grade.Clement would lay a lighter fire on

the 24th.

The railroad prepared for the 24th.

Invitations went to state and local

officials, friends of the Teague fam

ily, the press, and railfan groups.

Train crews washed the coaches and

repainted No. 8's tender with the

numerals 10. But on September 14

Paul Dunn received an official no

tice from the New Hampshire Air

Pollution Control Commission: The

Mt. Washington Cog Railway was

ordered to "cease and desist" pollut

ing the air with coal smoke or to

close down. For several uncertain

days it looked as if No. 10's debut

would be off. However, after the ini

tial confusion the railway discovered

that the antipollution mandate al

lowed 60 days to comply. Because of

this 60-day grace period, the CogRailway could finish its 1972 season

and apply during the winter to the

state legislature for a pollution tol

erance permitting operations to con

tinue. No. 10 would have her day.At 8:30 a.m. on September 24, 1972,

more than 20 trainmen milled around

in the ground fog outside Marshfield

Station. They weren't working; theywere taking pictures of tuscan red

44 May 1973

Both photos, Richmond Hosley.

NO. 10 pauses for water at Waumbek tank (above), one-third of the way toward

the summit. No. 2 blasts over a trestle (right) , showing off the new youth given her

by Master Mechanic Niles LaCoss, who in 1971 rebuilt her as practice for No. 10.

coach No. 4 resting at the platformand locomotive No. 10 clearing her

throat 20 yards down the hill beyonda red ribbon hanging across the track.

LaCoss and Engineer Christy took

turns stealing each other's engineer

hats and arranging the red, white,

and blue bow tacked under No. 10's

right cab window. Their games con

tinued killing time like a father

and an escort before a debutante ball.

By 10:30 the escorts' wait was up.

Sherman Adams and several other

former governors of the state, legislators and senators, AppalachianMountain Club members, reporters,

railfans, and children in sweaters,

wool slacks, and fluorescent parkasclustered around the red ribbon

the temperature up on the summit

was 28 degrees. Engine No. 10 was

officially christened Col. Teague. Then

Charlie Teague, the Colonel's son and

brakeman on the train, cut the ribbon

and signaled Christy to run No. 10

up to her coach. As the locomotive

nudged the bumper pad of coach 4

(there are no couplers), a bell in the

depot clanged summoning the VIP's

to board No. 10's train. Christy bent

out of the cab window to catch a few

last instructions from LaCoss and

shushed a cushion of wet steam un

der 10's belly in response to Charlie

Teague's "Proceed."

As No. 10 pushed out one healthychuff after another, applause broke

from the riders in her coach and

spread to the hundreds of people on

the platform. No. 10 had a lot of

friends in New Hampshire, and theywere wishing her a long life. No. 10

bellowed a return salute with two

shrill longs, one short, two longs,and stomped her passengers up the

first steep pitch above Marshfield

Station. Christy looked back to La

Coss and Dunn at the station. Everyone smiled no problems.

In January 1973 the New Hampshire

legislature passed a bill that exempts

all steam locomotives that operatewithin the state from meeting pollution-control standards. No. 10 has a

hundred years ahead of her. X

Ron Palmquist.

NEWEST AND OLDEST: No. 10, built in 1972, steams beside Old Peppersass, billed as the

world's first cog railway engine. First No. 1 was used to build the Mt. Washington Cog Rail

way in 1866. The tender for No. 10 is one borrowed from engine No. 8 and relettered.

Trains 45


By Charle

OU WOULD U

25 years of steam railway

enthusiasm I would have remem

bered to bring some matches.

haven't. A firebox full of (

soaked wood, a boiler fullof cold

water, and not a Zippoin sight

or a competent fireman.At 8:30

a.m., engineer Bruce Houck and I already look late for the 1 1

a.m. train. As for mv competence, the shop crew has probably made up their minds on that one. While I have remem

bered all of engine No. 4's grease points, in mv rabid excite

ment I've obviously lost the knack of remaining somewhat

clean while greasing.

Nearly 20 years of absence has clearly taken its toll.

Fortunately for me, someone takes pity and produces a

lighter. Moments later, a nicely roaring fire and its promiseot steam lights the 4's dusty cab with an orange glow. I add

more wood to the firebox and consider switching to coal

when things look a little hotter. Although locomotives can

keep their lires for weeks at a time, No. 4's recent mainte

nance had necessitated a complete shutdown. We start from

cold this day in the traditional manner.

The promise of steam that's whv I've come back to New

Hampshire's Mount Washington Cog Railway and its world

of small, mountain-climbing steam trains. I had worked sev

eral summers for the railway back in the 1970's, and steam

had become a way of life. There was a price to pay, hoyvever.

Like the greasy coal dust all of us scrabbed off each evening,memories of mountains, blue skies, hot fires, and an endless

wooden trestle stubbornly remained.

Leaving No. 4 to cook by itself for awhile, I scavenge the

shop for the small pile of tools and odd items that accompany a road engine. The search proves profitable. I even dis

cover several small, double-ended hooks made from weldingrod with heavy machine screw nuts captured at one end

just the thing to hang on valve handles. They'll stay in placeas the engine works heavy grades.

Cog engines lack springs, so cab vibration can become

intense as a locomotive's four cylinders drive two separate

crankshafts at 300 revolutions per minute.

Crankshaft pinions drive a large bull gear on each of an

engine's two axles. Keyed to each, a large cog gear meshes

with the railway's unusual center rail, called the "rack." It

looks like a miniature iron ladder, which in fact it is. Each of

the line's seven engines pushes a solitary passenger coach up

6288-foot Mount Washington at a statelv 4 mph rung byrung. The 31/4-mile railroad's average grade is 25 percent, or

one foot up for even' four ahead.

Some engines seem to notice each small step.

Managing an explosionBruce comes over Irom the carshop at about 10 a.m. By

this time, No. 4's lire has become a nice inferno and the

steam-pressure-gauge needle begins to rise like some awak

ened clock. I "hook" the fire out with a long iron poker to

spread the burning coal. Steam lines creak and hiss as the

engine slowly conies lo life. At about 10:30, Bruce steps to

the ground and asks me to move the locomotive after the

pressure reaches 60 pounds.It takes about 5 minutes of careful throttle work to repeat

edly nudge the engine ahead oi lew inches before the steam

cylinders stay hoi enough to allow continuous motion. A hil

more throttle after several tries, and No. 4 finally rumbles

across the shop transfer table, Bruce looks for problems as

crankpins omd counterweights slowly revolve to the syn

chronized valve motion.

Satislied, he steps back up and lakes the engineer's seal as

we move steadily oil the table and onto the starl ol the main

line. Moments later we slow, gently contacl our h ain's singlepassenger car, omd starl lo push. Gravity provides the onlv

coupling needed lor Mounl Washington Mains. A machined

roller oit the fronl ol each engine frame pushes a steel plateal ihe hack ol each coach. Passenger coirs always remain

6h

"up-mountain" as trains back downfrom the summit.

The engine feels good and begins to sound loud on the

way up to'the coal bunker. Cog engines mavcrawl along at 4

mph, bul the cab interior sounds like a huge blacksmith

shop run amok. And of course, there's that legendary blast

furnace of a fire. All lour cylinders can exhaust directly up

the smokestack at almost no "cutoff," as cog locomotives

lack any kind of valve gear, so firebox draft borders on the

ridiculous.

On quiet afternoons, a low, booming sound drifts across

the base station as firemen open their firedoors on the hill

over a mile away and thousands of feet above. While pas

sengers often compare cog locomotives to the gentle, sensi

tive "Little Engine That Could," Mount Washington crews

know that the fireman and engineer of Waddy Piper's little

tale had their hands full managing a continuous explosion.

We stop, bunker up, wash out the ash pan, and run up a

few yards to the standpipe for water, where the passengers

board. Suddenly it's time to go.

Bruce looks over and quietly smiles just as he did back in

Fireman Joe Eggleston demonstrates the sure-fire "one-handed" shoveling

method aboard No. 9, shown pushing toward the summit in August 1999.

In 1996, another train claws upward amid the summit's rocky wasteland.

I'k vi\s

1979 when we last worked trains together."You ready?" he asks.Bruce never did go in much for ceremony.

Two shorts on the whistle, and we take off over the small

trestle at the base station, immediately climbing the line's

first 25-percent grade.No time for remembrance of things past, onlv time for the

fire. We'll use 1000 gallons of water and burn about a ton of

soft coal to reach the summit in an hour of actual runningtime not incredible statistics by mainline standards but a

lot for 20 tons of engine and 9 square feet of firebox grate.

As do nisinv Mount Washington firemen, I lire mostly

right-handed, holding each loaded shovel next to ihe blade

wiih slmlt otnd handle luckecl beneath my right arm and

elbow. Mv left hand opens and skinis the firedoor shut-

something vou wanl lo do sis List as possible. You can lose ,i

pound or two ol steam each second ihe door remains open.

and vou need every bit.

You also want lo close ihe door right now for sheer

preservation. II the lire really lakes oil sind becomes while.

arms become sunburned in seconds, clothing can catch lire.

and eves will ache as il you'd looked oil the sun.

\1 w 2000

So far, so good, this trip. The blast stays a whiter shade of

orange, while the smokestack exhaust looks alternately black

and then clear, just what vou want to see. Coal to the left,

coal to the right, check the exhaust, and wait a moment.

Sometimes you don't wait a moment. Sometimes you spin a

third shot to the back of the firebox and the sweat begins to

steam off your blue jeans as the tiredoor lingers open.Time passes quickly, and the pressure holds steady at 150

pounds as the ringing, shaking, diminutive No. 4 leans into

the 30-percent grade of Cold Spring Hill a quarter-mileabove the base. The tender isn't just behind us any more, it's

also some feet below, so I'm firing on a set of stairs.

Mv arm hurts and I don't care. There is absolutely noth

ing like this.

All the right movesBruce has his hands lull playing a kind of roaring me

chanical chess game with 130-year-old rules and one simple

goal: you win il vou get to the summit on schedule. It's easy

to lose. Crack the sidestack valve and lose a pawn, shove the

injector handle closed too soon and lose a queen. You have

an infinite number of moves and one 6288-foot-high oppo

nent.

Here is how to play the game:You manage four items in order of importance: boiler-

water level, steam pressure, speed, and draft. Each one of

these can dramatically affect the other three, so the trick is

to balance them all in relation to each other. It all takes intel

ligence and a certain amount of zen: sometimes the best

thing to do is nothing.The lirst item, water, is the most important. You must

have it. Steam locomotives are quite safe providing that the

engine crews maintain a correct water level. But, if the water

level falls below minimum, fusible plugs will blow out and

the boiler mav even fail.

That stuff in the slender glass water gauge mav look like

water, but you need to see it as liquid gold. But here's the

catch: add loo much and steam pressure drops like a stone.

Less steam pressure means less speed. Checkmate; vou'relate at the summit.

You can keep steam pressure higher bv feeding the boilerwith a smaller amount of water while keeping train speedabsolutely constant with the throttle. Sounds easy, but it's

harder to do in practice. Cog engines mav mn at a fast walk,but railway grades vary from 20 percent to almost nothingwithin a lew feet. You can easily let several tons of train

rocket forward at the next Hat section and lose steam.

Ol course, then vou cut back the throttle too much, too

late. Passengers start to sense a rhythmic tore and aft sway

as the locomotive starts lo run ihe engineer checkmate.

You can also attempt lo maintain sieam pressure bv keeping the "sidestack" valve closed. This will send every last bitol engine exhaust up the smokestack to create magnificent

Mount Washington's fearsome 25 percent grade looms in a view out thefront vestibule as a train begins the climb not far from the base station,

"These guys can fix anything"

ASIT HAS FOR SOME 130 YEARS, to

day's Mount Washington Cog Rail

way in New Hampshire builds every

thing possible in-shop, including new

locomotives and coaches. In "New

Steam on the Mountain" [May 1973

Trains], author Randall Pefferdescribed ihe completion ol the rail

way's new engine No. 10.

Mike Kenly, a young machinist

working in Binghamton, N.Y., read ihe

slorv, decided ihe cog railway looked

interesting, and moved to New Hampshire. He became engine shop lore-

man in Ihe early 1980s. Under his

direction, ihe railway completed si

new No. 8 in 1983, a new No. 9 in

1993, omd oi new No. 2 in 1994, Kenlyworks wiih Cog veteran Charles Kcni-

son, who left si career in foundry man

agement io become general managerin 1996.

Both know ihe demands ol moun

lain railroading and understand steam

machinery. Perhaps jusl as important,both have oi sense ol humor .ind wise

detachment, ihe result of years in a

strangely beautiful place with its own

sel ol rules, jokes, history, and tales of

long-gone managers and employees

who should have staved in the big city.Once, lor example, .i young brake-

man refused to believe ihe 32-volt

specification oi' train electrical sys

tems. Ilts belief changed instantly in

Ihe luminous explosion thai resultedIrom plugging a number o\ nam head

lights into si regular wall outlet.Sometimes employees gel a little

too demanding. Thirty years ago, massive mechanic Harold .Adams wouldslalk such a person in ihe engine shop.quickly attaching their bell to a ropeand hoisting them to the distant ceil

ing lor si while.

I used lo work with Kenisons

father, Frank ("Chub"), before he died.

Once, back in 1979, 1 pestered Chub

68

draft; however, engines run faster if you open the valve to

vent some exhaust to the atmosphere. Ah, but the sidestackis a touchy thing a half turn too much and unburned coal

starts to pile up in the firebox. Steam pressure drops.Checkmate.

Here is one winning scenario:

There vou are, on schedule, roaring up the steepest gradeof Jacob's Ladder at 37.41 percent, where engines have noth

ing left to give. The fireman has a great fire, but steam pres

sure has begun to fall. You do nothing. You remember that20 years ago, engineer Dana Kirkpatrick taught you to slow

the train on the lesser grade ahead by cutting sidestack to

force a bit more draft. As the grade begins to change, you lis

ten for the subtle hint of extra power, slowly cut back a quar

ter-turn, and rehang those heavy nuts on the valve handle to

make it stay put.

Barely ease back on the throttle a few yards later and

gain 5 precious pounds of steam. Leave the feedwater settingwell enough alone.

Feel the balance and win the game.

Each trip to the summit can demand a different balance,

as does each engine. Each trip also requires intimate knowl

edge of the track and the previous memorization of mini

mum water levels lor ihe many, manv grade changes. Engineers must recognize all ol those changes too, whether in

postcard weather or blinding snowstorm, something Mount

Woishinglon can switch between in aboul 10 minutes.

The hand of an artist

Today's trip with Bruce remains picturesque. However,

inside the cab at hallway we have begun to lose steam. The

grade steepens potsl 25 lo 30 percenl and beyond in the run

up lo Jacob's Ladder. As the ground tails away on the Jacob's

trestle, No. 4's steam gauge reads 140 pounds. The enginestill moves well, bul nol lor much longer it this continues.

Bruce has left me wiih plenty ol draft, but the tire burns a

redder shade ol orange.

Perhaps we have buill up clinkers gummy, lava-like

plates ol coagulated coal impurities that choke a lire. Then

again, there is ihe fireman's overall competency ...

Later, 1 come lo suspect thai Bruce had planned this. Jusl

siller Jacob's he shoves the ancient webbed brass injector

The presence of the rack makes "throwing a switch" to enter or leave a

passing track partway up the mountain into a complex, multi-part act.

handle forward to slop the water. He's buill up some extra so

he can let the steam pressure rise without feedwater lor a

couple ot minutes. A hundred Vsirds later were back to 145

pounds as No. 4 works up Mount Washington's last truly

steep grade on the "long trestle." Bruce starts the water once

again and watches the steoim pressure kill while ihe gradelater diminishes. Our speed, controlled mostly bv water sel

ling, remains the same.

This is art.

We pass the down-mountain train on the switeli ol si high

alpine meadow called "Skyline." The rest ol the trip becomes

s: .1 Diiin Ingles

overmuch about repairs to my engine.He smiled quietly, grabbed a hook-

equipped pulley, and slowly ap

proached. 1 opted to help with repairs.Houck and Robert Maclay know

such stories alter years at the cog rail

way. They have also quietly written a

more serious one of their own in

building five larger, safer passengercars that remain faithful to past de

signs. The new coaches carry 70 pas

sengers instead of the previous maxi

mum of 48. and also shelter brakemen

Irom the weather.

"These two guvs are really sit the

heart of the cog railway." said Keni-

son. "They can fix anything, build omv-

thina. weld anything."

Like all railroads. Mount Washington has its share ot persistent problems. According to Kenison, findingnew employees is the toughest. It can

take weeks to train a brakeman and

several seasons ot experience on the

mountain before anyone becomes an

engineer. Fewer seem to wanl the job.

"I think people, especially kids todav.

don't want io get their hands dirty,"said Kenison.

And what a place 20 miles trom

the nearest real town at the base ot the

White Mountains its quite a room

with si view. Where else can vou earn a

competitive salary learning to brake.

fire, and run your own steam train?

And there is plenty oi work lo be

done. The new coaches have letl sev

eral ancient wooden passenger cars,

one Irom the 1870s. without a pur

pose. Thev need attention, along with

the many original buildings of the

18^7 shop area. Near the base and

elsewhere on the mountain, the tracks

need realignment. The two sections lothe shop need some help. However,

management consistently says "when"

in discussing such problems, not

"w hether."

Watching the cog railway pull itself

up bv the bootstraps is an amazing

sight. New trestle and new rack

abound. As 1 walk the tracks I can feel

and see a kind ol solidity not present

in the 1970s.Charles Morrill

\1 o 2 000 69

easier as grades lessen while the views stretch to hundreds of

miles across the mountains and valleys ol northern New

England.I remember one August morning here, years ago, after

100-mph night winds had blown white ice and snow into

otherworld fantastic shapes. Wonderful No. 9 (Alco, 1908)

ran well that day. I had never seen a sky so blue.

Bruce and I climb the final summit hill today on 60

falling pounds of steam. "Hey," says Bruce, "we made it."

It is lucky for most engine crews that uphill trips end

when they do. Most cog locomotives don't have a whole lot

Grace J. B\ni\

left in them when thev reach the summit. Tenders come up

nearly dry. Most of the coal has gone into the lirebox, where

clinkers tend to build up quickly with the reduced draft of

the railway's lesser grades.We will not need much coal or water on the way down,

however, as gravity provides all the motive power anyone

might want and then some. We'll control it by compressingair in the steam cylinders. Meanwhile, a brakeman at the

rear of the coach helps to keep train speed steady by workingthe large mechanical drum brakes of each car. Brakemen

even customarily pull a few inches off an engine on steep

grades, separating the train slightly, although passengers sel

dom notice.

It's oi time-tested design with lots of redundancy, although

learning to brake smoothly also takes brains. Most good en

gineers started out as good brakemen, learning the changing

grades regardless of weather.

We soon leave the summit under graying skies omd lake

the switch for the upcoming train oit Skyline. The trip down

takes less time. Brakeman Phil Beroney knows his stuff, and

our speed stays nice and constant. Aboul 20 minutes later we

pass another upcoming train al the Waumbek siding and

stop for some water oil the lank below the switch.

The descent remains nicely uneventful. We watch the

track and steal ot glance oil the miles ol endless green forest

before rolling back to the base standpipe aboul 21 hours

after the trip began.

A pioneer railwayIt's easy to overlook the signil icance ol this cog railway.It all began with one ol Mount Washington's frequent

storms in 1857. Sylvester Marsh, a wealthy businessman,

had invited his pastor, Rev. Augustus Thompson, foi a hike

70

in the White Mountains. As they approached Mount Wash

ington's summit, they found themselves crawling on the

ground, facing hurricane-forcewinds.

They barely survived, and Marsh became acutely aware of

Mount Washington's danger. It has always lookedlike a fair

ly easy climb, but its severe weatherclaimed lives back in the

1800s and it still can today.

Marsh wanted to solve the problem.

He was the right person in the right place at the right

time. Like many financially successful people of the 1800's,

Marsh constantly embraced new technology and was also

The White Mountains are a majestic background for a train heading down

the mountain in 1999. Another train nears the coaling station toward the

summit; Cog engines are nearly out of fuel by the time they reach the top,

an innovator. He helped establish Chicago's once-huge meat

packing industry and made a fortune in grain processing.Marsh's work appeared twice on the cover of the then-

weekly Scientific American. The first instance involved grain-drying machinery. The second, on March 5, 1864, described

what would become his mosi ambitious project: si mountain

railroad later named the Mount Washington Cog Railway.

The idea seemed radical in the 1850's and '60s. Practical

steam traction had onlv existed for si lew decades when

Marsh asked the New Hampshire state legislature to charter

his project in 1858. Historians s.iv the house erupted in

laughter al the request. Marsh pressed ahead, obtaining the

charter and beginning construction oi the line jusl after theCivil War. Finished in 1869, il was the worlds lirst practicalmountain-climbing railroad, li immediately attracted theattention ol Central Swiss Railway Superintendent NicholasRiggenbach, who consulted Marsh during construction oi

the sinulai 1871 Swiss line on Motml Riei.

fhe Cog Railway became famous .is news .incl pictures ofh proliferated, Americans bought thousands ol stereo view-

cards featuring many scenes ol the cog and rolling slock.

President Ulysses S. Granl even made the trip in 1870 withIns lanulv. Pictures ol the occasion survive. Grant and his

party posed al Waumbek .is the engine look ii\t water, and

later they posed on the summit.

M.n sh died m 1884. and since those years, the railway has

slowlv faded into a quiet temporal backwater with the occasional picture or two in travel articles and brochures. Some

how, the place has remained much the same: 3! - miles oi

mostly wooden trestle and a stable of seven small steam

locomotives remaining essentially faithful to Marsh's designsof the early 1870's. Ownership of the line passed to the

Boston & Maine Railroad in the late 1800's and eventually to

longtime cog manager Arthur Teague and his family in 1962.

Teague liked the tradition of steam but may have quietlywished to dieselize. He probably found the cost too great. In

1955, for example, he decided to build two new aluminum

passenger coaches in the company shops after the Budd

Company priced equivalents at $55,000 each.

Changes on the mountain

Teague's widow, Ellen, sold the cog railway in 1983 to a

consortium of New Hampshire businessmen. Joel Bedor

and Wayne Presby bought out the other two major stock

holders in the mid-1980s, and today thev jointly own the

original Mount Washington Railway Company. Thev also

own the Mount Washington Hotel a few miles away,

the Bretton Woods ski area, and several other near

by properties. For the first time since B&M days,

railway workers have the option of year-round

employment.The new oyvners have made other changes.

"

think the most significant thing we've done for

the cog is the A.C. power line to the base in

1987," said Presby, "and getting the state to

let us use the Mount Clinton Road into the

base over the winter."

Previously, the railway had relied on a

stream-driven water wheel connected to a

D.C. power generator for lighting. Leather

belts and line-shalting connected the same

turbine to machines in the engine shop,while a separate gas or diesel A.C. generator

ran during daylight hours each summer for tasks such as

restaurant refrigeration. A.C, D.C, leather belts: it all

amounted to a quaint kind ol power generation museum

subject to droughts and inoperable during winter. The com

pany had to truck the engine shop out and back Irom rented

locations each year.

"It used lo be crazy," said Presby. "You had only three

months during the winter when you could actually li\ lliings.All the other time was spent moving engines, machinery, and

tools to somewhere else. Now, for the first time, we can work

on engines all winter."

Presbv, w ho has fired trips to the summit, said the railway

recently began an analysis of summer engine breakdowns

with the help of a statistician on the hotel stall. "Here's sin

example. Early on, we found that broken main steam lines

caused 80 percent of all breakdowns. So. we decided to at

tack the problem," he said. As a result, shop crews now rou

tinely replace worn sections of flexible rubber steam hose

(designed for pile drivers) in the main and exhaust lines ot

the locomotives each winter. Engine vibration no longer ripsout rigid steel piping as it had tor decades.

Presby said the cog railway will modernize in coming

years, while preserving its essential character and some older

equipment. "There's a total commitment here to steam, and

not just because we like it," he said. "It nuikes economic

sense, it draws a lot of people." Back in 1982, the line carried

26,000 passengers to the summit. Todsiv the annual total is

more than 76,000. Amazingly, after 130 vears. the railwaystill makes si profit, though Presbv wont say how much.

The future could even bring modern sUMm to ihe slopesof Mount Washington. Seeking ihe latest in sUMm. Presbv

and Bedor recently journeyed ni the Swiss Locomotive s.v

Machine Works in Winterthur, Switzerland, That linn in

1992 resumed building steam locomotives with the delivery

ot three rack engines lo the Austrian Federal Railways. "The

new oil-burning ones are incredibly efficient and better for

the environment." said Presbv. The journey io Europe com

pleted a kind ol circle lor ihe railway begun back in 1869

when Riggenbach visited Mount Washington to keep up wiih

new technology. Sylvester Marsh would certainly approve.

Living treasuresAll who spend some time at ihe cog isiilwsiv

become part ol a distinctly American tradition

that began just alter the Civil War. Pstsi time

seems closer here in ihe While Mountains w here

jobs of the 1920s remain ihe jobs ol today.Some countries designate those who master

past skills as "living treasures." Citizens come

Irom loir and wide lo watch them work, li is not

that way here at a small private railroad compa

ny in northern New Hampshire. \o one watch

es track foreman Dave Moody rebuild nine-partrack switches just below 6000 feet, or sees ma

chinist Joseph Orlando nail tricky stCsim injec

tor tapers. Passengers cannot Wsiich engineerAllan Haggeit set the balance or fireman Joseph

Eggleston sloke si recalcitrant \o. 9 to the sum

mit jusl one more time before Cog ManagerCharles Kenison gets si chance lo lime valve

motions sit ihe shop. There isn't much recog

nition lor such people, just ihe promise oi

Mount Washington steam: .i chance to join

a special kind ol Lunik, learn a unique tradi

tion, and perhaps led ihe timelessness ol it all

on some perfect, cold, blue-white morning.Boick in 1973 I had read about the Cog Railway in ["rains

[see sidebar] and began writing then-Cog R.iilw.iv ManagerEdward Clark, who hired me in 1975 after high-school graduation in Los Angeles. The Greyhound bus let me oil in Lit

tleton, N.H., and 1 spent mv lasi money on .i half-hour taxi

ride to the base station not know ing quite w hat else to do.

This siet unintentionally created .i cog footnote.

Moody remembers my $20 Lire .is il I'd spcni il yesterday"We .ill uilked about that one lor si while,'' lie s.iid lasi

summer. "Why didn'1 vou just call for a ride?"

1 did get rides in future summers and became sin engineerin the season ol 1978, the s.mio \o.ir 1 mel si girl named

Carol who worked at the base station restaurant.

Twenty-one vears later, the bus lets me oil in Littleton sii

ihe Irving service station, and Kenison soon shows up. lie

drives us to the base m his pickup and we talk aboul mv

wile. Carol, the kids, .incl how lite goes well. We silso uilk

aboul ihe recent death ol Ellen Teague. Devout, lough obsti

nate, and silso loving, she ran ihe railway lor vears oilier the

death ol her husband. Arthur, in 19ew.

1 thank Kenison lor si ride at the end ol si hectic day. He

could lisive found someone else lo moike ihe trip."Well, vou know 1 re.illv did sisk Moody," he savs with a

smile. "He said vou ought lo take a cab." 1

CHARLES MORRILL. 43, worked as a newspaper reporter

before becoming an architectural millworker in Charlottesville,\ a., m 1986. He lives in Charlottesville with his wife and fundy. Sources: "They Said it Couldn't he Done. The Mount Wash

ington Cog Railway and lis History." hy Donald H. Bray(Kendall/Hunt, Dubuque, Iowa. 1984); "Railway to the Moon."

he Glen A Kidder (Courier Printing, Littleton, N.H., 1969).

M w 2000 71

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