Wednesday, Sept 3

Another beautiful day in the White Mountains of NH. Tuesday was a laundry day and catchup, have to have those periodically. Today we headed to the COG RAILWAY of Mt Washington. This railroad system was started in the 1800's and has today become an international tourist attraction. The trail, gog driven, climbs the west side of the mountain from 1400' up to the summit of 6288' The average gradient is 25% but on Jacob's Ladder the gradient is 37.41%. This incline means that the front of the passenger car is 14 feet higher than the rear, when on this part of the track. The engines are the original steam powered and coal fired. Lots of black smoke comes from the smokestack on the up hil trip. The fireman shovels 14 shovels every 20 seconds, using a ton (2,000lb) coal on the uphill trip. The engine also uses 1,000 gallons of water, making the necessary steam going up the hill. Once at the top you can see VT, ME, Quebec and of course NH. MT Washington is noted as having the worst weather in the U.S.
with top winds of over 200 mph. There is a full time manned weather station at the top.