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[squeaking of coaches throughout]
>> BEN: Well, I thought I'd make a small video about the Cass Scenic Railroad.
Nowadays it is only a preserved pleasure railway,
but it's original purpose from the 1890s
right up to 1960 was to haul logs up and down this hill.
The mountain that we're just coming down now, having just visited, is called Bald ***.
Don't make any jokes, thank you!
The locomotive was one of a fleet of about 20 designed by a Mr Edward Shay,
who based his locomotive and engine works in the state of Michigan.
He built the first all-wheel drive locos, specifically tasked to go at low speeds,
round tight curves and up high gradients of the mountains of West Virginia.
Mr Shay's locomotives came in service between 1900 and 1923,
when the loco that we are using, Number 11, was built.
The gradient up this hill gets as high as 9% which is about 1-in-11.
Which is an unbelievable gradient really, when you think about the loads they used to pull up and down here,
about...
..10 or 12 wagons full of red spruce tree logs.
So, the tonnage would have been quite high -
quite outstanding amounts considering that this was completely deforested from its natural state
in around 1900 when they built the railway line.
Going higher and higher, built using immigrant workers from Italy,
some of the more difficult reaches were completed by hand,
which makes the engineering feat to get this to an elevation of 4,730 feet
at the peak of the mountain even more outstanding.
Quite an amazing day actually, the temperature today is about 25 degrees celsius,
the temperature on the top of the mountain wasn't bad.
I'm filming this video specifically for people like Mr Small, Mr West, Mr Ashmole, Mr Westwood,...
..maybe even Mr Yarlett.
That really is the little engine that could, we started out at an elevation of 2,700 feet
above sea level, come a distance of 11 miles in an hour and a half, climbed up another 2,000 feet
to the top of the Alleghany Mountains.
Quite astonishing.
Anyway, I'm going to let you go now. Thank you for watching.
[Captioned by Bendolino]