Mount Washington Cog Railway

The Mount Washington Cog Railway is founded in 1869 after Sylvester Marsh secured a charter on June 25 1858, built a prototype locomotive in 1866, ran its first paying passengers on August 14 1868 and reached the summit in July 1869, establishing the world’s first mountain‑climbing cog railway. After Marsh’s death in 1884 the line passes to the Concord & Montreal Railroad until 1889, when the Boston & Maine Railroad assumes control; the locomotives switch from wood to coal in 1910. Henry N. Teague purchases the railway in 1931, ownership transfers to Dartmouth College upon his death in October 1951, and Arthur S. Teague buys it from Dartmouth in 1962; after his death in 1967 his wife Ellen Crawford Teague becomes the first woman president of a railway and sells the line to a group of New Hampshire businessmen in 1983. From 1986 to 2017 Wayne Presby and Joel Bedor co‑own the railway, appoint Charles Kenison as general manager in 1995, introduce the first diesel locomotive in 2008, and after the Bedor family sells its interest to Presby in April 2017, Presby assumes direct management in December 2017. Major upgrades in 2020–2021 replace the original 25 lb/yd rail with 100 lb/yd rail and add a 34,000 sq ft maintenance facility, enabling year‑round operations and cementing the railway’s status as the world’s oldest continuously operating mountain‑climbing cog line.