E Ticket Cog Railway

We ate breakfast after dropping Indy at day care again. Then went over to Littleton Walgreens and grocery shopped at a small Walmart and Food CoOp. Returning to camp, we rested and had lunch.
Then it was time to go to the Cog Railway on Mt. Washington. Mt. Washington is the highest mountain in the Appalachians. This cog railway was the first cog railway built in the world. Normal railroads can handle grades up to 7 percent. This railway uses a gear and rack system to climb very steep grades. This train has a grade of 36 percent. This train does not use a standard coupler, but a roller pushing a plate on the car above. On the way back down, the brake-man uses two large wheels to brake and hold the car off the engine a few inches to reduce stress on the 150 year old engine.
We took the Fall Color steam trip to the station part way to the top. This trip turned out to be an E ticket ride. (E Ticket ride at Disneyland in the 1960’s were the more exciting and popular). We got to the part way station where we had about 20 minutes to wander around and take pictures and talk with the engineer. We re-boarded the train and started down the steepest part of the track. The brake-man was on the brakes holding us away from the engine a few inches BANG! The car came to a stop and the engine stopped about 10’ further down the track. The fireman got out and inspected the right front area of the engine and found a disconnected drive rod to one of four pistons that drive the cogs. They ended up removing the rod and isolating the piston. We started down again, but something was still an issue, likely something got bent causing vibrations in the engine. The engine started down the track again, the brake-man had trouble releasing the brake. By the time he fixed the problem, the engine was almost to the station at the bottom of the hill. Normal procedure in driving the coach “light” was to follow the engine be about 6’ in case the brakes failed. Not this time, we were totally in the hands of the brake-man. We made it back to the station about 40 minutes late, followed by about 5 diesel trains that had gone to the top of the mountain. When we stopped at the station to unload, everyone gave the brake-man a round of applause for keeping his cool and getting us safely back to the station.
We went and picked up indy from doggy day care again.Læs mere