Overall, 1869 was a good year. Thomas Edison patented the electronic electric voting machine. Austria issued the first postcard. And in New Hampshire, a locomotive chugged its way to the summit of Mount Washington for the first time.
One hundred and thirty-nine years later, electronic voting machines remain questionable and postcards have largely given way to e-mail, but the Mount Washington Cog Railway still goes to the peak of New England's tallest mountain. And now it's doing it with biofuel. It's big news in the Granite State, where the railway makes hourly round trips at the height of summer -- burning a ton of coal each time -- and Mount Washington tourism brings in big money.
At the dedication ceremony last weekend, Gov. John Lynch broke a bottle of fancy spring water over the cab, and former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen hailed the new engine as a sign of the times. "Today we see a new energy initiative at the Cog Railway," she said during the event. "It's part of what is happening across the country, moving our nation toward energy independence."
The Mount Washington Cog Railway, a National Historic Engineering Landmark, was created in 1852 when meat-packing baron Sylvester Marsh got lost near the summit -- always a bad situation -- of the 6,288-foot mountain. Once he found his way home, Marsh set to work building a cog railway, which uses a rail with teeth that mesh with a cog a center rail with slots that mesh with a toothed cog on each car, allowing the train to climb steep terrain.
The New Hampshire Legislature laughed, saying Marsh "might as well build a railway to the moon." But he persevered, using oxen to haul equipment and materials 25 miles to build the railway. It was a long, slow slog, but finally, on July 3, 1869, a wood-fired engine named Old Pepperass Peppersass climbed Mount Washington. Wood gave way to coal in 1910, and it's powered the engines of the Cog Railway ever since.
The owners of the railway decided it was time to go green(er) and hired Al Laprade, a retired mechanical engineer from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, to design and build a biodiesel locomotive. The 617-horsepower engine isn't just cleaner, it's more efficient. The train now makes the trip in two hours instead of three.
The new locomotive is called Wajo Nanatasis, which is pronounced "Wazdo Wadzo Nanna-tassis" and is Abenaki for "mountain hummingbird." It was selected from among the entries in a "name the train" contest.
Photo by Mount Washington Cog Railway. The main pic shows the new biodiesel locomotive. Here are some photos of the traditional coal engines. The bottom one, No. 9, has been modified to run on biodiesel.
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