The mechanism of the road-way is very simple. The track is formed of three iron rails, firmly clamped to stout timbers, laid lengthwise upon transverse pieces, or sleepers. These are securely embedded, where the surface will allow, or raised upon trestles, where its inequalities would compel a serious deflection from a smooth or regular inclination. One of these, about half-way up the mountain, is called Jacob’s Ladder. Here the train achieves the most difficult part of the ascent. After traversing the whole line on foot, and inspecting it minutely and thoroughly, I can candidly pronounce it not only a marvel of mechanical skill, but bear witness to the scrupulous care taken to keep every timber and every bolt in its place. In two words, the structure is nothing but a ladder of wood and iron laid upon the side of the mountain.[43]
The propelling force employed is equally simple. The engine and car merely rest upon and are kept in place by the two outer rails, while the power is applied to the middle one, which we have just called a rail, but is, more properly speaking, a little ladder of steel cogs, into which the corresponding teeth of the locomotive’s driving-wheel play—a firm hold being thus secured. The question now merely is, how much power is necessary to overcome gravity and lift the weight of the machine into the air? This cogged-rail is the fulcrum, and steam the lever. Mr. Sylvester Marsh has not precisely lifted the mountain, but he has, nevertheless, with the aid of Mr. Walter Aiken, reduced it, to all intents, to a level.
The boiler of the locomotive, inclined forward so as to preserve a horizontal position when the engine is ascending, the smoke-stack also pitched forward, give the idea of a machine that has been in a collision. Everything seems knocked out of place. But this queer-looking thing, that with bull-dog tenacity literally hangs on to the mountain with its teeth, is capable of performing a feat such as Watt never dreamed of, or Stephenson imagined. It goes up the mountain as easily as a bear climbs a tree, and like a bear.
I had often watched the last ascension of the train, which usually reaches the summit at sunset, and I had as often pleased myself with considering whether it then most resembled a big, shining beetle crawling up the mountain side, or some fiery dragon of the fabulous times, dragging his prey after him to his den, after ravaging the valley. My own turn was now come to make the trial. It was a cold afternoon in September when I entered the little carriage, not much larger than a street-car, and felt the premonitory jerk with which the ascent begins. The first hill is so steep that you look up to see the track always mounting high above your head; but one soon gets used to the novelty, and to the clatter which accompanies the incessant dropping of a pawl into the indentures of the cogged-rail, and in which he recognizes an element of safety. The train did not move faster than one could walk, but it moved steadily, except when it now and then stopped at a water-tank, standing solitary and alone upon the waste of rocks.
By the time we emerged above the forest into the chill and wind-swept desolation above it—a first sight of which is so amazing—the sun had set behind the Green Mountain summits, showing a long, serrated line of crimson peaks, above which clouds of lake floated in a sea of amber. It grew very cold. Great-coats and shawls were quickly put on. Thick darkness enveloped the mountain as we approached the head of the profound gulf separating us from Mount Clay, which is the most remarkable object seen at any time either during the ascent or descent. Into this pitchy ravine, into its midnight blackness, a long and brilliant train of sparks trailed downward from the locomotive, so that we seemed being transported heavenward in a chariot of fire. This flaming torch, lighting us on, now disclosed snow and ice on all sides. We had successfully attained the last slope which conceals the railway from the valley. Up this the locomotive toiled and panted, while we watched the stars come out and emit cold gleams around, above, beneath. The light of the Summit House twinkled small, then grew large, as, surmounting the last and steepest pitch of the pinnacle, we were pushed before a long row of lighted windows crusted thick with hoar-frost. Stiffened with cold, the passengers rushed for the open door without ceremony. In an instant the car was empty; while the locomotive, dripping with its unheard-of efforts, seemed to regard this desertion with reproachful glances.
Reader, have you ever sat beside Mrs. Dodge’s fire after such a passive ascension as that just described? After a two hours’ combat with the instinct of self-preservation, did you dream of such comforts, luxuries even, awaiting you on the bleak mountain-top, where nothing grows, and where water even congeals and refuses to run? Could you, in the highest flights of fancy, imagine that you would one day sit in the courts of heaven, or feast sumptuously amid the stars? All this you either have done or may do. And now, while the smartly-dressed waiter-girl, who seems to have donned her white apron as a personal favor, brings you the best the larder affords, pinch yourself to see if you are awake.
In several ascensions by the railway I have always remarked the same symptoms of uneasiness among the passengers, betrayed by pale faces, compressed lips, hands tightening their grasp of the chairs, or subdued and startled exclamations, quickly repressed. To escape the influence of such weird surroundings one should be absolutely stolid—a stock or a stone. So for all it is an experience more or less acute, according to his sensibility, strength of nerve, and power of self-control. However well it may be disguised, the strong equally with the weak, and more deeply than the weak, feel the strain which ninety minutes’ combat with gravitation, attraction, ponderosity, engenders. The mind does not for a single instant quit its hold of this defiance of Nature’s laws. As long as iron and steel hold fast, there is no danger; but you think iron and steel are iron and steel, and no more. An anecdote will illustrate this feeling.
After pointing out to a lady-passenger the skilful devices for stopping the engine—the pawl, the steam, and the atmospheric brakes—and after patiently explaining their mechanism and uses, the listener asked the conductor, with much interest,
“Then, if the pawl breaks while we are going up?”