A new moon over New HampshireThe Mount Washington Cog Railway, once known as the ‘Railway to the Moon,’ still climbs the mountain after 140 years. Here’s how the railroad beams in the 21st century

by Karl Zimmermann

© 2011 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.TrainsMag.com

Mount Washington Cog Railway’s first biodiesel, Wajo Nanatasis, descends Jacob’s Ladder on June 7, 2009. Justin Franz

36 Trains MAY 2011

Mount Washington, New Hamp-shire’s iconic peak, unchanged for eons, remains among the most meteorologically fierce places in

the U.S. The Northeast’s highest mountain, it often lurks in a cap of clouds, buffeted by near-constant winds that are chilly in sum-mer and life-threateningly cold in winter.

In contrast to the mountain’s immuta-bility, the railroad that climbs to its 6,288-foot summit transformed itself in 2010. The Mount Washington Cog Railway be-gan making its 3¼-mile trek from the base to the summit in 1869. The world’s first mountain-climbing rack-and-pinion, or “cog,” railroad remained rooted in 19th cen-tury technology for 140 years. Now, practi-cally overnight, the Cog, as the line is fa-miliarly known, has climbed into the 21st century with a vengeance.

As recently as 2007, seven slant-boilered, coal-burning steam locomotives powered the Cog. Manchester Locomotive Works built the oldest of these in 1873; however, the railroad renewed the entire fleet’s boilers and frames in the 1970s. For the 2008 season, the railroad debuted a new locomotive: home-built biodiesel M1, Wajo Nanatasis, which means “Mountain Hummingbird” in the Native American Abenaki tongue. The next year two near-identical siblings appeared (M2 Algonquin and M3 Abenaki) and for 2010, M4 Agioco-chook joined the biodiesel quartet. That left steam in a distinctly supporting role. Pow-

ering just a single train on most operating days, steam’s current responsibility is more ceremonial and historical than practical.

The Presby and Bedor families, the own-ers who accomplished this change, partici-pate in the railroad’s well-being. Like Sylves-ter Marsh, who built the Cog, they have roots in the White Mountains. They have owned the historic railroad (originally with two other partners) since 1983. At that time, they purchased it from Ellen Teague, the widow of Arthur Teague, who’d bought it in 1961 from Dartmouth College and ran it until his death in 1967. For decades, the Presbys and Bedors touted the Cog’s histori-cal purity, though the search for a substitute to coal-fired steam power goes back even beyond their ownership, to 1976, when the railroad built Spirit of ’76, an experimental diesel, for use on work trains. The under-powered locomotive never entered service.

At the bottom, Marshfield Base Station now welcomes visitors. The station, named as earlier ones were for Sylvester Marsh and Darby Field (reputedly the first white man to climb Mount Washington), is much larger than the original 1941 structure. Opened in 1994 to help celebrate the Cog’s 125th anniversary, it offers a snack bar, gift shop, and an extensive museum.

Sixteen years after the bigger and better station arrived, the Cog began using the biodiesels. “It’s the best of both worlds as I see it,” marketing director Cathy Bedor says. “It’s still possible to experience coal-fired

steam on at least one train almost every day. And, surprisingly, many people don’t even know the difference [between the diesel and steam]. Founder Sylvester Marsh was inno-vative in his day,” she adds, “just as we are today.” In fact, one New Hampshire legisla-tor called the Cog the “Railway to the Moon,” when Marsh applied for a charter in 1858 to build the railroad. And the Cog con-tinues to unveil new ideas, like its biodiesels.

Biodiesel vs. steam“A very small percentage of our passen-

gers are disappointed not to be powered by steam,” Cog manager Charlie Kenison says. “The Cog has never been that popular with enthusiasts. They can’t categorize it.” Bedor and Kenison ticked off the advantages of the conversion. The diesels are less pollut-ing, which is a factor, even though the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services doesn’t require the Cog to follow air pollution laws because it is a recreation-al railroad. With “hospital-grade” mufflers, the biodiesels are far quieter than steam. Bedor and Kenison acknowledge that pa-trons objected to the soot, smoke, and noise of the steam-powered ascent. The Cog is, after all, a “tourist line” in the broadest sense, and none of its owners in-tended it to become a museum.

With the diesels, the cost of operation (they require only a one-man crew) and maintenance is much lower. While the steam locomotives for a round trip burned

Passengersboarda“double,”poweredbybiodieselsWajo Nanatasis(left)andredAbenaki,atBaseStation.Karl Zimmermann

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a ton of soft-grade bituminous coal (now reduced to about half of that by heat ex-changers and mechanically driven water pumps), diesels use only 18 gallons of bio-fuel, which costs $60 as opposed to about $250 for a ton of coal. Reliability and con-sistency are also major factors when com-paring diesels to steam engines.

“The biodiesel locomotives are more effi-cient on the mountain,” Bedor says, “though with good quality coal and a good fireman, we can get up the hill just fine with steam.”

Kenison, the Cog’s manager since 1996, also worked for the railroad from 1966 to 1975 before a career in electrical engineer-ing and iron founding. He knows well what the steam experience is like. “Coal is always an issue,” Kenison adds. “It seemed the sup-pliers always slipped in the bad stuff when we were busiest.” Biodiesel fuel, on the oth-er hand, is consistent.

“Cold Spring Hill, just above Base Sta-tion, is steep,” Bedor explains. “Starting out from a dead stop, the fireman has to shovel like crazy.”

“The firebox door is hinged on the right, which means it has to be opened with the right hand,” Kenison says, “which requires shoveling with the left. I never understood why they built them that way.”

The diesels make the upgrade trip much faster in 36 minutes as opposed to roughly one hour for steam, which generally gives riders a full hour layover (formerly only 20 minutes) at the summit.

“Some of the steam locomotives on our roster are virtually twins,” Kenison says, “yet they don’t operate the same. Each has its own personality.” Cog employee Joe Eggleston began working for the railroad in 1993 as a track welder, but immediately loved that personal sense of the steam loco-motives and wanted to run them. There was, however, a problem: Though a fluent lip-reader, Eggleston is deaf.

“So we went to the New Hampshire De-partment of Transportation,” Kenison re-calls, “and asked what we’d have to do so he could be an engineer.” The transportation department wasn’t concerned as long as there was a second person in the cab. On the steam locomotives, there would always be the fireman, but Eggleston couldn’t hear the brakeman’s bell signal, so the Cog in-stalled a flap that would drop down in front of him when the cord was pulled aboard the coach. Since the diesel locomotives op-erate with one-man crews, Eggleston can run only steam, which is just fine with him.

My wife, Laurel, and I boarded the 9 a.m. train, the one most often under steam. Our locomotive, Waumbek, No. 9, came in 1908 from Manchester Locomotive Works, the builder of all its Cog steam pre-decessors from 1874 onward but by 1908 under the Alco umbrella. More than a cen-

tury old, No. 9 is the second-youngest loco-motive on the Cog’s active steam roster of six. (No. 10, now named Kroflite, was built at the Cog shops in 1972. The youngest, No. 8, Moosilauke, was home-built in 1983 but is in storage. Cog workers were rebuilding No. 8’s boiler, but the railroad suspended the job when it decided to dieselize. Waumbek was the first Cog locomotive with the cab and boiler on the same plane, both equally cant-ed. The earlier horizontal-boilered steamers

(the oldest, Hercules, dated to 1869) had cab and boiler describing a reflex angle. (Five of these engines still survive.) After many years dressed in green and red, Waumbek now wears its original all-black livery.

“I thought that color scheme a little clownish,” Kenison says, but it will not be completely phased out. Also in basic black is No. 6, Kancamagus. Built in 1874 and thus the oldest of the surviving fleet, No. 6 was the backup locomotive in 2010 and

ACog0-2-2-0climbsa37-percentgrade,thesteepestpartoftherailroad.JustinFranz

>> Some like it hotLearn more about Old Peppersass and the

Cog in Trains Express PDF, free to subscribers, at www.TrainsMag.com 38 Trains MAY 2011

scheduled for upgrades similar to Waum-bek’s in winter 2011-12. Cog mechanics up-graded No. 2, Ammonoosuc, built in 1875, last winter. Since the steam fleet is now larg-er than required, No. 3 was offered for sale on eBay and Rail Swap, but not purchased. The Cog donated a coach and locomotive No. 4 to nearby Twin Mountain for display.

The railroad’s earliest locomotives had vertical boilers. The Cog used progenitor, Old Peppersass, so nicknamed for its resem-blance to a pepper-sauce bottle, to build the railroad. Old Peppersass served until 1878 and has stood stuffed and mounted at the base for many years, pieced together after being wrecked in a ceremonial resteaming

in 1929. Old Peppersass was right beside our train as it began its clamorous ascent to the summit. As Kenison had pointed out, from base to summit, with an elevation gain of 3,588 feet, the ride offers no let-up for the engine or crew. “The train always operates at full load,” he says, “unlike main-line trains of the steam era.”

Our climb was much what I had experi-enced in 1980 — and, for that matter, what travelers would have seen and felt a century before that, though until about 1910 the lo-comotives burned wood. That ride was un-relentingly loud and consistently smoky. We stopped at Waumbek Tank, not far above Base Station, to top off the tender.

We passed the current version of Halfway House, which appeared to list, but of course it was the train that was listing. We crossed the railway’s most iconic spot, Jacob’s Lad-der: a 300-foot-long curved trestle as high as 30 feet from the ground. (In fact, the whole railroad is built on wood trestling rather than ballast.) With its 37.41-percent grade, Jacob’s Ladder is the steepest part of the Cog, where the average grade is 25 per-cent. The brakeman invited us to stand to experience the severity of the tilt.

Switching it upNext, the train reached Skyline Switch,

where a colorful pair (blue coach No. 8 and red diesel M3) waited on the siding. This last traditional switch on the Cog takes nine moves to throw, and is a brakeman’s physical challenge. Plans are to modernize the switch or eliminate it due to the diesels’ faster travel times. At the summit the weather was cold, blustery, and dynamic, sun-splashed and washed by low clouds in alternation. The railroad boasts the potential view of four states, Quebec, and the Atlantic Ocean, but we were not fortunate on this day.

The change in flora and topography from base to summit was astonishing, as birch gave way to black spruce and balsam fir, then wind-ravaged, stunted krummholz (“twisted wood” in German), and finally, above the timberline, just a jumble of rock. There was plenty to do at the top, including a summit museum, which was why patrons

Waumbek rests with its passenger car near Marshfield Base Station, which has a cafe, museum, and gift shop. Kevin Madore

The Cog installed this electrical-hydraulic base switch in 2002. Two photos, Karl Zimmermann

www.TrainsMag.com 39

found the 20-minute stay inadequate. We paid particular attention to the stone Tip Top House, a hotel built in 1853 for hikers (thus substantially predating the railway) and now restored as a museum.

We made the trip off the mountain and watched the topographic progression in re-verse, against a stunning yellow and red au-tumn palette, from a privileged spot, the immaculate cab of the Agiocochook. Cogger Club membership costs $149 for two years of unlimited rides, discounts for family and guests, and a cab ride in one of the diesels. Ryan Mooney, a seven-year Cog veteran, who occasionally runs steam and spends the winters welding rack segments in the Base Station shops, was at the throttle.

Well, actually, not at the throttle, but at the joystick. Push it to one side and go for-ward. Push it to the other and go in reverse. On this joystick are just four buttons: go faster, go slower, horn, and “dead man’s” response, confirming that the engineer is alive, awake, and attentive. That’s it. Just above eye level is a computer screen show-ing an astonishing amount of information about the engine’s functioning: revolutions per minute, fuel consumption (calibrated instantaneously), speed, oil pressure, fuel pressure, water-jacket temperature, and more, using IQAN software. Able to count the number of teeth on the cog it has tra-versed, the locomotive knows where it is on the line within 4 inches.

“The mixture is 20 percent biofuel and 80 percent petroleum,” which is called B20 biodiesel, Mooney says. “At the tempera-tures we experience, a higher percentage of biofuel would make the mix prone to gel.” Biofuel is made from vegetable fat or oil.

The biodiesels are the most dramatic transformation, but the Bedors and Presbys began extensive rebuilding of the track and locomotives immediately after buying the railroad. In 1984 electricity was brought in on Base Road so work in the shops could continue through the winter. (Previously, a Pelton water wheel on fast-flowing Frank-lin Brook generated electricity to pump wa-ter to the summit, as well as to light and power all the Base Station facilities.)

The fleet of cars turned over completely by the 1990s. The Cog replaced Nos. 3 and 4, wooden coaches built by Laconia Car Co. in the 1870s, and the two home-built, unloved “tin cans,” the 57-passenger alumi-num-and-steel Chumley (built in 1958) and Thelma (1963). The first 56-passenger coach No. 5 debuted. Then, in 1997, the railroad built No. 6, the first of the 70-pas-senger coaches in use today. The next year, the Cog added two more. Now the Cog rosters six, the number needed when the railroad was fully steam-powered. The Cog workers built the brightly painted, wooden,Victorian-styled coaches. Front

and back they have walls of glass, and the side windows open for air and photogra-phy. They appear quite large when operated with steam, but the additional capacity means more travelers to the summit.

Another major change on the Cog is the switches. In 2002, the Base Station switch was replaced by an electrical-hydraulic-powered transfer table with running rails and cog rail mounted on a platform that moves laterally. The following year, Waum-bek switch was similarly replaced. Now in-stead of the stub siding, there’s a long pass-ing track, which enables two trains in each

direction to meet. Though a single engine pushing a single coach has always been the invariable consist, “doubles” — two trains operating on the same schedule and short headway — are the norm at busy times. The Waumbek switches are solar powered.

“Over time the decision will have to do with reliability,” says Wayne Presby, presi-dent and secretary of the Cog, regarding the use of diesels and the future of steam. “Steam locomotives breaking down on the mountain are not the best thing for your reputation.” The railroad had made several attempts to convert the boilers to oil

No.9fillsitstenderatWaumbekTank,whileanothertraincontinuestoclimb.KevinMadore

Keepin’theCogclimbin’,isthisteamwithabiodiesel,fromleft:RonRuelofParkerHannifin,amotionandcontroltechnologycompany;EngineerRyanMooney;ChiefEngineerAlLaPrade;ManagerCharlieKenison;andTrainmasterBobbyTrask.

>> See the Cog’s roster and how it got its start at www.TrainsMag.com

firing but it never matched the fire gener-ated by coal. “We may build another die-sel,” he says, pointing out that they can climb at 4.76 mph as opposed to 2.8 mph for steam. Both make the trip down at the same speed. Presby estimates the cost of the 600-hp diesels at $600,000, far less than the off-the-shelf alternatives.

Will steam trips continue, given their higher fuel use, maintenance and labor costs, and lesser efficiency? “It depends on the patrons, not on me,” Presby says. “Some may have a preference for steam indefinite-ly, or maybe not. Obviously there’s some nostalgia for steam, but most of our patrons don’t care, and our ridership is up this year.”

“With diesels we can run earlier and lat-er in the season,” Presby continues, check-ing off more pluses for dieselization and showing the Bedors’ and Presbys’ love for the Cog and its history, as well as business savvy. (Wayne’s wife, Susan, manages group sales. Joel Bedor, Cathy’s husband, is vice-president and secretary.)

Moving mountainsIn 1991, the families purchased the

grand but needy Mount Washington Hotel, opened in 1902 and in 1986 designated a National Historic Landmark. The hotel is in Bretton Woods, six miles from the Base Station, a route once served by the Boston & Maine (originally Concord & Montreal) branch, which shared a station at the base with the Cog. Then the families acquired the local ski area and golf course.

“We got the hotel up and running in winter,” Presby said, and that was the key to profitability. In its first full year of opera-tion, a $3 million loss turned into a $300,000 profit. The Presbys and Bedors made other substantial improvements and enhancements, and restoration continued after they sold the hotel in 2006 to CNL Lifestyle Properties. Today Omni manages the hotel. Approached from the front, this white, porch-girt wedding cake of a hotel, impeccably restored, looks much as it must have a century ago.

The visible change on the Cog is greater. Recently the railroad built a bridge over the Ammonoosuc River (“fishing place” to the native Abenaki) at the base, enabling the Cog to create a crude road along the tracks to haul away decades worth of debris.

“Many passengers arrive with no idea of the significance, background, and history of the railroad,” Cathy Bedor says. Begin-ning in 2011, the Cog will have installed an on-board device with recorded commen-tary, which will play at just the right mo-ments along the route.

The guru of all the mechanical innova-tions, switches, diesel locomotives, and more is Chief Engineer Al LaPrade, who oversaw the construction of the diesels

from the ground up, in a tradition of self-sufficiency well established at the Cog. In 1993, LaPrade took early retirement after 25 years as a mechanical engineer at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Four years lat-er, he applied for a brakeman position on the Cog. “I was perfectly happy just to be on the crew,” he says.

“One day an axle broke on one of the coaches,” he says. “‘You know,’ [I said] ‘I think I could design something to fix that.’” He could and did. “Pretty soon little things led to big things,” LaPrade recalls.

So, how does one go about building a locomotive? “It’s actually just a mechanical engineering exercise,” LaPrade says. “You identify the requirements. As the project grows you start building a team.”

One member of the team was Ron Ruel of Parker Hannifin, the firm that supplied the hydraulics, electronics, and IQAN com-puter software.

“If we hadn’t listened to Ron,” LaPrade says, “the locomotives would have been much more complicated to run.” John Deere supplied the engine. Why diesel- hydraulic drive rather that diesel-electric?

“There’s a weight penalty with diesel-electric,” LaPrade explains. “Because we’re running on a wooden trestle, the locomo-tives have to be light.” In fact, the three new-er locomotives weigh 5,000 pounds less than the M1, by using lighter steel for the frame.

The Cog plans to build a fifth locomo-tive. “Nothing [will be different]. We don’t want five stepsisters here,” he says.

“If Sylvester Marsh were here today, he would approve,” LaPrade asserts. Marsh’s cog railway and its vertical-boilered steam locomotives were cutting-edge technology in his era, just as the biodiesel locomotives are today. “We have steam buffs, and they hate the diesels, but others are interested. At the moment the sheet-metal siding is off two units just because we ran out of time in the shop to put it on, and many customers seem to enjoy seeing the machinery. My hope is that the diesels can subsidize the steam,” he says.

So how long do the Bedors and Presbys expect steam locomotives to be running on the mountain? “Forever,” Cathy Bedor says. “We inherited the steam, and it has never been our intention to eliminate it. It’s gone past being old to being antique, and valued for that.” Wayne Presby has a more practi-cal answer to the same question.

“At least long enough to use up all the coal I’ve got stockpiled,” he says with a chuckle. “That will take two, three, maybe four years.” 2

KARL ZIMMERMANN, a frequent Trains and Classic Trains contributor, is the au-thor of numerous books, including his latest, “Little Trains to Faraway Places.”

Mount WashingtonCog Railway

Webster (3,875’)

Jackson (4,012’)

Clay (5,553’)

Je�erson (5,725’)

Eisenhower (4,775’)

Franklin (5,028’)Monroe (5,390’)

Adams (5,805’)

Washington (6,288’)

Madison (5,380’)

Tip Top House

Mt. Washington Observatory Museum(6,288’) Sherman Adams

Summit Building

Ammonoosuc River

Skyline Switch

Jacob’s LadderHalfway House

Waumbek Tank

Marshfield Base Station (2,700’)

Crawford Notch

Bretton Woods

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© 2011 Kalmbach Publishing Co., TRAINS: Rick Johnson

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WHITE MOUNTAINS

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One of the Cog’s steam trains grinds uphill toward Halfway House. From the photographer’s perspective, you can see much of the lower half of the railroad, as well as the hydraulic switches (center) above Waumbek Tank. Just above the smoke plume is the coaling pit at Marshfield Base Station, where all trips originate. Kevin Madore