Garmie was way off today. She took us 12 miles in the wrong direction. Luckily we saw signs pointing where to turn. I wish we would have followed the signs instead of Garmie. We had to turn around and go back once we saw that Garmie took us the wrong way. We arrived just in time to board the Cog Railroad. I could only get a few pictures before they called for “All Aboard.” The engine was the oldest working engine at Mount Washington. The Cog Railway has been in operation since 1869. It took a team of a hundred men working for three years to build the track. The first locomotive, Peppersass, was hauled in pieces to the site and put together. The cog center track was the first of its kind in the world. It is the second steepest railway in the world. As we started up the tracks, I got to look out the door. The tracks were not straight. It reminded me of a rickety old wooden roller coaster. I wasn’t sure the cars were even going to stay on the tracks. We were only traveling at three miles per hour, so there probably was no chance we were going to derail.
One third of the way to the top is where they get water for the train. It was our first stop. Each trip up takes one thousand pounds of coal and one thousand gallons of water. They have a building that is built level next to the track. When we go by, it looks like it is crooked. This is because we are at an angle. At one point, the front of the car is 14 feet higher than the rear of the car. This occurs at Jacob’s Ladder. It is the steepest part of the trip.
During the trip, we made a few unscheduled stops. There was a linkage on one of the steam cylinders that kept breaking. At one point, another locomotive stopped to help and radioed down to the shops to fabricate a new one.
We passed an earlier train bringing passengers down from the mountain. It was a diesel locomotive. I had hoped that we would not be on one of those. I like the steam engines. We were told that the diesel was built in their shops and ran on bio-diesel. It was hoped that these new diesels would be powering the majority of trips with some steam power used as support.
At the top it was foggy. It was a common sight this trip. It was also very cold. Kim immediately went into the lodge to get warm. It was about 80 degrees at the base of the mountain and only about 40 at the peak with a steady 30-40 mph wind. I wanted a few pictures and braved the cold for a while. We were only at the top for twenty minutes before they called us back to the train.
During the decent, we had to back into a siding to allow two other trains to go by. We had been told during the accent that we could not be on the balcony of the car. However, that did not seem to apply to the siding. Several other photographers and I hung out on the balcony while we were moving.
When we arrived in Burlington, VT, we checked into our next B&B, the Sunset B&B. This seemed more like a home than one of the themed B&B’s we had stayed in before. It was nice, but different from the other ones. Our hostess said several times not to let anyone in without a key. Sure enough, when we came back from our evening out, we let someone in. This woman assured us that she had a key. It seemed suspicious, but we were reassured later by the hostess that she was OK. I don’t think Kim appreciates how hard it was to find a hotel that was central to several brewpubs!
When we were still planning this trip, Kim saw a program on the Food Network about famous restaurants across America. One of them was in Burlington called Boves. They are famous for Italian food. This is where we had dinner tonight. It was defiantly worth the visit.
Kim dragged me to another brewpub for drinks. I’m getting pretty tired of drinking beer every night! It was a get together with a few alumni that are working at Husky. It was good to see them again and relive old memories. The beer was the best I’ve had so far on the trip.
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