AN ASCENT OF MOUNT WASHINGTON

On the morning of Tuesday, the 10th. of August, the weather in the valley being clear and calm, I decided to make an attempt to climb Mt. Washington with my 1922 model 735 Stanley. A second reason for choosing Tuesday was that the scheduled tour for the day went right past the Auto Road, so it was possible that we could complete the tour as well. Arthur Eldredge came as passenger/mechanic/brake man (chock setter) on this trip.

Having received a "go for it!" from Howie Wemyss, manager of the Auto Road, and filled the water tank at Glen House, we started our ascent at 8:11 in the morning. Almost immediately, we lost four minutes as the pilot light had gone out and the main burner failed to reignite after the water stop. Although the car had been fitted with an additional feed water pump, making the nominal capacity four gallons of feed pumped per mile, we had to stop three times to jack up a wheel and pump.

At the first pumping stop, at 1.5 miles, I rather over did it, with the result that we had very wet steam for nearly half a mile. At the 3 mile mark, we stopped again to pump. As the water tank was only half full at the Halfway House, we stopped to siphon. The final stop for pumping was near the Cragway Spring turnout, or about 5 1/4 miles. As the tank was about half full at the summit, it is possible that we could have made the climb without siphoning if I had not overfilled the boiler at the first pump stop.

For most of the climb, we traveled at about ten miles per hour, in short cut off, with a steam pressure of 400 psi. at the engine. At several points, the grade was too steep to climb with a boiler pressure of 450 psi., and long cutoff was resorted to for a few yards. This was done only when the speed in short cutoff dropped below about 5 miles per hour. On the rare occasions when the car accelerated to 15 miles per hour, we throttled back to about 10. This driving technique served well until we arrived at the public parking lot at the summit. To climb the last few yards to the upper lot, we found it necessary to have 500 psi. at the engine in long cutoff. This meant a wait of less than five minutes to raise steam in the lower lot. The total time for the climb was about one and a half hours. While Arthur kept a reasonable log for most of the trip, no entries were made after we entered cloud. Also, my hands were so shaky from the cold and the stress of driving that what notes I made at the summit are barely legible. Thus, no accurate time record exists.

From a meteorological point of view, the climb was very pleasant until we reached Halfway House, being partly cloudy and warm. However, before we passed the seventh mile post, we were in cloud and being increasingly buffeted by the wind. The temperature was moderate by Mt. Washington standards; just above freezing. For the last half mile or so, I was driving with very limited vision; not only was the visibility limited to about 30 feet by the cloud, but my right (windward) eyeglass lens fogged up to the point of being nearly opaque. The wind at the summit was between 55 and 60 mph.

We were met at the top with blasts from a steam whistle, to which we responded in kind. Thus, we met and exchanged greetings with the crew of Cog Railway locomotive number 9, Steve Comeau, engineer, and Trevor Barett, fireman. Coincidentally, this locomotive had been built in 1899, which we considered highly appropriate!

After absorbing some hot cocoa, we prepared to descend. However, the pilot light was not only out, but stone cold and the wind made reheating it with an ancient Bernzo torch essentially impossible. The boiler still showed a pressure of 350 psi., which was enough to maneuver out of the parking lot. We started down, knowing we weren't going to need any steam on the road! I had fitted one of the brake shoes on the rear axle with a thermocouple so we could monitor the dissipation. We kept to a speed of about 10 miles per hour, with the brake temperature gradually rising to 250 deg. F. However, I found the effort of keeping the brake pedal down very wearing; I think a force between fifty and eighty pounds was required. After about fifteen minutes, my leg muscles started to get twitchy. As I was afraid of what might happen if I had a serious leg cramp during the descent, we broke the journey at three points on the way down so I could walk around until my leg felt loose again. At the last of these brake rests, well below the tree line, we relit the pilot light. Thus, we were able to relight the main burner and regain some steam before we passed through the tollgate at the bottom. The descent required about an hour, including stops.

The story of our ascent ends with our going into Howie Wemyss' office with the comment that we felt we had earned a bumper sticker. His response was to open a new package of stickers, giving us the top one with the comment that he hadn't thought he would need them until Friday. This new package contained the stickers reading: "This Steam Car Climbed Mt. Washington". We then continued on the Tuesday tour route, arriving in Jackson in time for lunch.

This Stanley has been modified in several significant ways through the years I have driven it, some of them specifically for the Mt. Washington climb. The changes include an economizer, oil separators, four wheel hydraulic brakes, a piston valve block mounted on a stiffened Stanley type 7 engine, an extra feed water pump, an electric condenser fan, and a very large superheater, producing 750 deg. steam. For the climb, an old 12 Volt car battery was mounted in the trunk so the fan could run at its rated power, in the belief that the battery would weigh less than the extra water condensed as a result.

If one assumes the pumps were working at their normal displacement, 43.2 gallons of feed were pumped into the boiler during the climb, 30.4 while under way and 12.8 during the pump stops (the speedometer is driven by the right rear wheel and, thus, gives a measure of how much was pumped). Of this, possibly two gallons were wasted as the result of over filling the boiler at the first stop. It is not clear that the pumps were working well; while we stopped every 1.5 miles at the beginning, pumping a nominal 4 gallons each time, in the last part of the climb we ran more than 2 miles per stop and pumped less than 3 gallons. Therefore, I suspect that at least one of the pumps was partially air bound when it was first turned on and gradually cleared it self during the climb. I don't think I will climb the mountain again merely to test this theory!

The engine had to work very hard for the entire climb. I do not believe it would be wise for any condensing Stanley to attempt the ascent without special preparation. The risk of a broken engine frame or badly scored valves is simply too great. It is needless to comment on the inadequacy of stock Stanley brakes.

(David K. Nergaard, 31 Aug.1999)

Back to Papers