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Friday, October 7

New Hampshire

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Our last six miles to the base station for the Cog Railway were as beautiful as the previous miles.

We arrived at the base station of Cog Railway about two hours early. That was a comfortable amount of time to have lunch, walk through the museum and get acquainted with the routine. They have a smooth well-oiled system.

We made our reservations in April.

The coal and water fired steam engine was preparing for a trip up the mountain. This doesn’t run as often as the diesel fueled engines, so we were pleased to see it.

We watched these happenings from the dining room where we enjoyed a lunch of soup.

The steam engine had to wait for the three trains to return from the top of the mountain. I took this picture at 11:21 am, which means they left the top of the mountain at 11 am. Since they had been there for an hour means they left the base station at 9 am. A round trip is about 3 hours.

On this day, a fairly busy day, they ran 3 engines every hour. Because there was a Platform D that was not being used, it appeared that they could run 4.

The steam engine left about 11:43 am so it would be out of the way for the 12:00 pm departure of the 3 diesel engines.

The noon engines getting in place for departure.

After seeing them off and getting familiar with the procedure for our 1 pm departure, we walked around the property. Cerwin was fascinated with the cog system.

Our next stop was the museum.

Cairns are stacks of rocks.

After learning some facts about the railway, we went down to the waiting area for loading the trains. I noticed a man taking pictures of his wife and children and asked if he wanted me to take a picture with him in it. He smiled and said, “Yes!” Then I asked if he would take a picture of us. He kindly obliged.

Cerwin waiting on a granite bench near Platform A where we would be boarding.

Our train coming into the platform.

We learned that the engine and train car are not connected. When going up, the engine pushes and on the way down the engine holds the car back.

One of the crew hung their hat or scarf over the platform sign.

We had a great brakeman. He gave us and the engineer information as we traveled up the mountain. He told us that this day was peak for the leaves coloring. Tomorrow they will start going downhill.

Our engineer

On our way

About halfway up the mountain we pulled over to wait for the trains that were coming down the mountain.

Coming down

Because we were in row two, I could take fairly good photos out a front window or through the open door.

I also took time to photograph a seat across the aisle. The seats tipped front at an angle that made it fairly level as we went up the mountain.

The climb was quite interesting.

When we were at our steepest climb (37.41%) the brakeman showed us what it looked like to stand up straight. 🙂

He challenged a few other people to try it. It was very difficult to stand up – let alone straight.

As we neared the top, the vegetation changed dramatically. There were only scrub trees and eventually only rocks.

Watching hikers and vehicles of those who chose to walk or drive to the top.

At the top.

Cerwin stood against a building to block the wind. Look how this building is anchored to the ground.

The temperature at the base station was in the high 60’s. Up here it was in the mid 40s. There was barely a breeze at the bottom, but about 35 mph up here.

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More in tomorrow’s entry

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