Mount Washington Cog Railway

Sylvester Marsh was laughed at in the New Hampshire legislature - one member suggested he might as well build a railway to the moon - and opened the line in 1869 anyway, the first mountain cog railway anywhere; reports of it from the Swiss consul helped bring about the Rigi railway, opened in 1871. The steepest section, Jacob's Ladder, is a trestle at thirty-seven percent grade, and the locomotive pushes rather than pulls the single carriage so that a coupling failure leaves the coach on its own brakes. Most trains are now biodiesel; one steam locomotive runs on a limited schedule. The summit at 1,917 metres holds a weather observatory that recorded a wind of 372 km/h in 1934, the world record until 1996 and still the highest measured outside a tornado or tropical cyclone.

The main sights

• The first mountain cog railway - opened 1869, two years before the Rigi line.
• Jacob's Ladder - a trestle at thirty-seven percent grade.
• A locomotive pushing, not pulling - a safety design from the start.
• The summit observatory - and the 1934 wind record.

When to go

May to October; the season is short and weather-dependent. Three hours.

Before you go

The summit is in cloud most days and the view is often nothing. Weather up there is severe in any season - bring layers. Tickets are expensive and book out. Steam runs on a limited schedule only.

Nearby

Bretton Woods is below; Crawford Notch is south.

Key facts