A stable of Iron Horses

“A steam engine is the closest thing to a living organism man has ever produced… these engines bare their primitive little souls for all to see.”

- welder Bill Sherwood, quoted in Yankee Magazine July 1990

Railway historian Tim Lewis has compiled a complete* roster of the Cog’s fleet of steam locomotives and rolling stock, including engines operated by the Boston, Concord & Montreal and the Boston & Maine railroads. These were the machines that shuttled passengers from the depot at Fabyans along a 6-mile spur line up to the Cog’s base station. You can examine this detailed historical record here.

Tim’s project, The Mount Washington Cog Railway– The Jitney Years is THE authoritative record of the World’s First Mountain-Climbing Cog Railway. In Tim’s words, his “sprawling “crowd-sourced” memoir contains comedy and tragedy, love and loss, is generously illustrated and can easily be sampled.” As part of our 155th anniversary celebration, we’re pleased to make his project accessible to all. While we’re only able to focus on tiny portions of his exhaustive research here, we do encourage interested readers to dive in and lose themselves, as we have, in the stories of man and machine committed to the seemingly impossible in one of the harshest environments on the planet.

• Tim adds a caveat: “it is subject to adjustment due to further historical reality to be discovered.”