The Mount Washington Cog Railway was the first of its kind in the world, and it today it is the world’s second-steepest railroad. This allowed the gear to pull the train up the mountain, and then safely lower it in a controlled descent on the return trip. This was far too steep for conventional trains, so the railway’s founder, Sylvester Marsh, developed a rack-and-pinion system with a gear on the locomotive that engaged a rack in the center of the track. Completed in 1869, this three-mile railroad was a major engineering feat, with trains rising about 3,500 feet in elevation from the base station to the summit. The steep slopes of this ridge, combined with the heavy precipitation here, makes it prone to landslides, and both photos show the scars of large slides here on the southern side of the ridge.īoth photos also show the Mount Washington Cog Railway, which runs along this ridge between Ammonoosuc and Burt Ravines. In between these two ravines is a ridgeline that runs diagonally across this scene. ![]() Further in the distance is Burt Ravine, a somewhat smaller cirque to the northwest of Mount Washington. However, Madison and Monroe are very close in elevation, and subsequent surveys discovered that Monroe is actually slightly higher, despite being named for the fifth president.Īside from Mount Jefferson, the most visible landscape feature here is Ammonoosuc Ravine, a large glacial cirque in the foreground that forms the western slope of Mount Washington. Along with Mount Madison and Mount Monroe, these comprise the five highest peaks in the region, and they are named in honor of the first five presidents, with the elevation rank corresponding to the order in which they served as president. At 5,712 feet, it is the third-highest peak in the northeastern United States, after the nearby Mount Washington and Mount Adams. The highest mountain visible in this scene is Mount Jefferson, which is a little over three miles away from here. In this particular view, perhaps the most remarkable similarity is that both photos show a Mount Washington Cog Railway train in the exact same location, right in the center of the photo. I took the photos during a hike along the southern Presidential Range from Crawford Notch to Mount Monroe, and later discovered that several of the photos lined up perfectly with ones that were taken around 1900 by the Detroit Publishing Company. As was the case with the previous post, I took the 2020 photo without having first seen the 1900 one. However, while that photo shows the summit of Mount Washington from Mount Monroe, this view looks a little further to the west, showing the western side of Mount Washington with Mount Jefferson further in the distance. ![]() The first photo here was taken from the same spot, and perhaps even on the same day, as the one in the previous post. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection. Mount Jefferson and the northern Presidential Range from near the summit of Mount Monroe, around 1900.
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