Approximately 10-11 years ago, when Veronica and I lived in N.H., we drove up North. The Franconia Notch, Mt. Washington and White Mountain area is beautiful and it is well worth the drive should you ever be in the N.H. area. The areas beauty heightens even more when the leaves change color at the beginning of Fall. The Cog Railway trips begins in Bretton Woods, N.H. and it takes approximately 3 hours. Once at the top of Mt. Washington, you get a 20 minute break to explore the observation building and surrounding sights on top of the 6,288 foot above sea level mountain. The train ride up seems very slow and this is because the tracks run along a 3.1 mile trestle steep grade with a maximum grade of 37 degrees. This makes it the second steepest mountain climbing train in the world, second only to the Pilatus Bahn in Switzerland. The locomotives were all coal fired steam operated engines but some, if not all, have been changed over to a more eco friendly engine system. When it is time to return, the engine was not turned around for the return trip, it just went down backwards with a very heavy use of the braking system to keep the train from going down too quickly. It was quite an experience and I strongly recommend this train ride if you ever go up there. For more info on the Cog Railway and Mount Washington, please click on the links below:
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