Mt. Washington Cog Railroad

The next stop was the cog railroad up Mt. Washington. Wikipedia says it is the oldest and second-steepest cog railway in the world with an average grade of over 25% and a maximum of 37.41%. It was pretty crazy steep.

Each trip takes a ton of coal and 1000 gallons of water. The coal is shoveled by hand, mostly on the way up. One shovel lasts about five seconds. It's a 3 mph ride up, and 6 mph coming down. The trip down is mostly controlled by the brakeman. The brakeman was a character who doubled as tour guide, giving us these interesting facts.

After a while, we cleared the treeline and headed into snow and fog.

At the summit, of course, is a gift shop.

The wind is high and nearly constant on the summit. The icicles are horizontal. Shelly made the best snowmanthing she could in the blowing powder.

We were the last train of the day. On the descent, it was "magic light" time.

Only 17 people rode. Some of them failed to plan for cold weather.