Cogs

2024-07-09
NH

I decided to buy tickets for the cog railway to the top of Mount Washington. Since I had some pains in my eardrum overnight we decided to send Valerie up and I will try to do it next time. I occupied my time with pictures of trains.

The railroad was originally built in 1869 to take wealthy vacationers to the hotel at the summit. At that time, it was really just like any other passenger railroad; a way to get to your destination. Some time after that, the hotel burned down, the Great Depression happened, and the railroad was bought cheaply by someone who realized that it should be an attraction rather than transportation. They still have some older steam trains, but the majority of the engines going to the top are now powered by 600 horsepower John Deere marine diesels.

The classic steam engine. Note the canted boiler to keep it level on the climb.

This is a cog railroad because it is 25-35% grade, which is very steep. Metal trail wheels on rails would just slip and spin. So they use a gear and a rack to gain traction. You can think of it like stretching out a bike chain up the mountain and then using a sprocket to pull yourself along.

A cog (center), presumably decommissioned for the big crack

After the excursion, we went back to a town we passed through yesterday - Conway - to score some lunch. We then decided to head over to Jackson which is one of the quaint towns we had considered. I knew it was about an hour from the hotel, so I assumed it would be at least a half hour away. Turns out it was only 10 miles. So we visited Jackson, which is very quaint but probably better in the winter. We found the White Mountain Puzzles store, which is a draw because we enjoy their puzzles. I scoffed at the "buy three get one free" deal because who needs four puzzles? Well, apparently we do.

The base of Jackson Falls is in town so we headed over to take a look. The plural "falls" is pretty accurate because there are a lot of them in a quarter mile stretch. There is probably 100 feet or so in drop total, but I didn't see any given drop of more than six feet. Lots of little plateaus separate the individual falls. There were a lot of people wading in the river.

We drove through some thunderstorms on the on the way back to the inn, and later had dinner in Littleton. I thought that for a small (6k) town it had a great downtown. There were few - if any - empty storefronts. Granted, it wasn't hardware and grocery stores. There were three photography and framing places, which seemed like a lot. And in general the stores tended to be artsy. But there were stores filling the street which is great. And they added a 200 foot bridge just off main street to get to additional parking just on the other side of the river to alleviate the problem of parking on main street, and also adding access for the senior center. I thought it was great. Their sign calls it the "Main Street of the Mountains." Maybe it is.