Mount Washington Cog Railway — rack railway
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Mount Washington Cog Railway

  • 1 min read
  • 44.274° N 71.332° W

Interesting facts

  • The line is nicknamed the Railway to the Moon, after a legislator joked that Sylvester Marsh might as well be granted a charter to the moon.
  • Marsh obtained his charter in 1858, but the American Civil War held up construction until 1866.
  • President Ulysses S. Grant rode the cog railway to the summit in August 1869, only weeks after the line was completed.
  • The first locomotives had vertical boilers mounted on pivots so that they stayed upright whatever the gradient; the original engine, Old Peppersass, is displayed at the base.
  • Workers once raced down the track on wooden slideboards called Devil's shingles; the record descent took 2 minutes 45 seconds before the boards were banned in 1908.
  • A Swiss consul's enthusiastic reports on Marsh's railway persuaded the Swiss government to commission the Vitznau–Rigi rack railway, which opened in 1871.
  • It is the world's second-steepest rack railway after Switzerland's Pilatus Railway, with an average grade of more than 25 per cent.
  • The track gauge is 4 ft 8 in, just half an inch narrower than standard gauge.
  • Marsh's ladder-like rack has open rungs, so snow and debris fall straight through instead of jamming the cog wheel.
  • After 1967 the railway was run by Ellen Crawford Teague, described as the world's first woman president of a railway.

Why it is worth it

The Mount Washington Cog Railway was the world's first mountain-climbing rack railway, and it still hauls passengers up the highest peak in the northeastern United States. Its founder, Sylvester Marsh, conceived the idea while climbing the mountain in 1852; paying passengers first rode in August 1868, and the track reached the 6,288 ft summit on 3 July 1869. The line is about three miles long and rises some 3,600 ft from its base station, and carries passengers from forest to the treeless summit.

The engineering is visible everywhere. Marsh's rack is a ladder-like centre rail engaged by a toothed wheel on the locomotive, and much of the line runs on trestles. The steepest stretch, the curving trestle known as Jacob's Ladder, has a grade of about 37 per cent. The steam locomotives push the carriage uphill at under 3 mph, and the climb takes about an hour; newer biodiesel engines, now the backbone of the fleet, make it faster, while a pair of coal-fired steam engines still run in summer and autumn.

From the summit the views open across the White Mountains. The railway was designated a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1962.

Getting there

The Marshfield base station is at 3168 Base Station Road, about 6 miles east of Route 302 near Bretton Woods in New Hampshire's White Mountains. The nearest sizeable town in a straight line is Laconia, about 84 km away; Lebanon Municipal Airport (LEB) is about 106 km away. Summit trains run from spring to late autumn, with a winter service to Waumbek Station.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Most Spectacular Rack Railways 12The Greatest 19th-Century Engineering Wonders 22The Greatest Engineering Wonders in the United States 26The Greatest Engineering Wonders 271

From the encyclopaedia

The Mount Washington Cog Railway, also known as the Cog, is the world's first mountain-climbing cog railway. The railway climbs Mount Washington in New Hampshire, United States. It uses a Marsh rack system and both steam and biodiesel-powered locomotives to carry tourists to the top of the mountain. Its track is built to a 4 ft 8 in gauge, which is technically a narrow gauge, as it is 1⁄2 inch (13 mm) less than a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in standard gauge.

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