New Haven, Connecticut, to Mount Washington, New Hampshire Great American Railroad Journeys


New Haven, Connecticut, to Mount Washington, New Hampshire

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Transcript


LineFromTo

I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America

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with my faithful Appleton's guide.

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Published in the late 19th century, it will lead me to all that is

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magnificent, charming...

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..confusing, invigorating,

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and wholesome in the United States and Canada.

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As I journey through this vast continent,

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I'll encounter revolutionaries

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and feminists, pilgrims and witches,

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and ride some of the oldest and most breathtaking railroads in the world.

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TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

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My rail journey continues in Connecticut.

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And then I'll move into Vermont, named after its green mountains.

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Its republic joined the 13 former British colonies

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in forming the United States.

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Then on to New Hampshire,

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with its uncompromising state slogan - "Live Free or Die".

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In fact, it suffered little during the Revolutionary War,

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and freely established the first state government independent of the

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British Crown in January 1776.

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TRAIN HORN BLARES

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My journey began in the coastal

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towns of the early European settlers.

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I'm now heading north through

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New England to visit the mountain

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region around Lake Placid.

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Crossing the border into Canada,

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I'll visit the French-Canadian city

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of Montreal before making my way

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down the Saint Lawrence River valley -

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with its Thousand Islands -

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to end in Toronto.

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Today, I explore collegiate life in New Haven,

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before travelling up through the New England states,

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stopping in the pastoral surrounds

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of Vermont and ending up in

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New Hampshire at the summit of Mount Washington.

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Along the way, I'll try to master one of America's oldest sports...

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Whoops! I got that went very wrong!

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LAUGHTER

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..discover the perils of New England's

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most-exposed mountaintop...

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We recorded a wind gust of 231mph.

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For almost 60 years, that was our claim to fame,

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is the highest wind ever known by mankind.

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..and hold on tight

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on one of the steepest railroads in the world.

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We have roared into action.

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And the track stretches ahead of me like a giant roller-coaster.

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This is going to be a fun ride.

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My next stop is New Haven, which the guidebook tells me

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"is the largest in Connecticut, and home to Yale College,

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"one of the oldest and most important educational institutions

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"in America.

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"Founded in 1700, established in New Haven 1717."

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Along with Harvard, that predates it, and other elite colleges,

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it forms the Ivy League of universities.

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A phrase that implies antiquity, excellence, and rivalry.

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Established by Puritan settlers in 1638,

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New Haven sits on the northern shore of Long Island Sound.

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It's a prosperous city in one of America's wealthiest states, Connecticut.

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There we go.

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-Thank you very much.

-It's a pleasure. Bye-bye. Have a good day.

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-Thank you. You too.

-Thank you.

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I'm alighting at the main train station,

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mercifully rescued from the threat of demolition in the 1970s,

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and now a beautifully-restored piece of 1920s beaux-arts architecture.

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Union Station, New Haven

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is by no means the largest the United States,

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but just look at it, how grand it is.

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This tells you about the wealth of the railroads

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and the glamour of train travel.

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I'm on my way to New Haven's most famous institution, Yale University.

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Annually, it educates over 5,000 undergraduates,

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and it's world-famous for its high standards of academic teaching.

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But Yale and other American universities have a separate stream

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of activity -

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the hugely lucrative enterprise of intercollegiate sport,

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for which some colleges have budgets of between 30-60 million.

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All that began here with Yale's first collegiate sport, rowing.

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And I'm meeting former Yale oarsman, Tom Vile,

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who's researched the history.

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Welcome, Michael, to Yale's Gilder Boathouse.

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It's wonderful to have you here.

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And what a spectacular view.

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Thank you very much.

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That's the Housatonic River and this is our trophy room.

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Thank you, sir.

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Tom, your trophy room is absolutely stuffed with trophies.

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You've had a good year, I think?

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We have had a good year.

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The varsity was undefeated and won the national championship.

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It doesn't get much better than that.

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Before we talk about rowing,

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give me an idea of college sports in the United States.

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I mean, for example, Yale's football stadium.

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The Yale Bowl was an architectural marvel

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when it was built around 1915.

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It seated about 75,000 people, which was the largest collegiate football

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stadium, for sure, in the country.

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Today, there are college stadiums that seat over 100,000,

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reflecting how big a sport it's become at many schools.

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How did rowing start at Yale?

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In 1843, seven Yale students purchased a Whitehall gig

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for 26.50 and brought it to

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New Haven because they thought it would be fun to have a boat club.

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How does the famous Yale-Harvard boat race get started?

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In 1852, James Whiton,

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who was a member of one of the Yale boat clubs,

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was going home to his family's home in New Hampshire.

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And he was ridding on a railroad, the Boston, Concord and Montreal,

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of which his father was a director.

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So he was in a good position to talk to one of the railroad's agents who

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was riding with him. And as they passed by Lake Winnipesaukee,

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Whiton looked out and said to the agent, Elkins,

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"Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a race on that lake?"

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Well, Elkins was very interested because the railroad was interested

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in developing tourist traffic and selling tickets to events and such.

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So he said, "If you will get the boys together, I will pay their costs."

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So in August of 1852, they got together on Lake Winnipesaukee.

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Harvard brought one boat, Yale brought three.

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Undaunted by numbers, Harvard won the race.

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And that was the beginning of intercollegiate sport in the United States.

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As these races grew in popularity, spectators flocked to them by train.

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Special observation carriages with grandstand seating allowed fans to

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cheer their teams,

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keeping pace with the speeding boats along the four-mile course.

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So you and Harvard have been battling it out on the water

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for more than a century now. What's the score?

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Well, we were pretty neck-and-neck for about a century,

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but in the 1950s, Harvard started on a run

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that gave them about 40 victories to our ten or so.

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But we've evened that up a lot in the last three years.

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What's happened in the last three years?

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Well, we would say we'd won three races.

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They would say that we've won two because their boat sank in one of

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them and they refused to concede the victory.

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We would say we won three out of three.

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It's probably not a good omen to be talking about sinking crews,

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but I've been offered the chance to learn some tips from the top.

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Ease my way in there.

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David Fogel is a former Yale rowing coach.

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Just run that out all the way into the oarlock,

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to where the button is, all the way in.

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-There we go.

-To there.

-All right, so...

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..we'll start out with the arms, in the water and then pull.

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Good enough.

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Rather than spend all the energy with your arms,

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try to use your back more.

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Like you're using a pry bar to pry something heavy.

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You want to get some weight into it, right?

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There we go. Now we can start to use a little bit of the legs.

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So we push with the legs and then draw.

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I find it quite hard to co-ordinate between the legs, the back,

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-and the arms.

-Well, there's too much going on for that, really.

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There's a lot going on.

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Whoops, I got that one very wrong!

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DAVE LAUGHS

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Dave, you are an excellent teacher.

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I am a poor pupil, I'm afraid.

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But in these few moments, I've understood the joy of rowing.

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Mucking about in boats.

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As I leave Connecticut, I'm continuing north through New England

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to one of the most beautiful of its six states...

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..Vermont.

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TRAIN HORN BLARES

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I'm travelling to a town which played a key role in creating and

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maintaining this idyllic pastoral scenery.

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Appleton's tells me that

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"Windsor, Vermont used to be served by the Central Vermont Railroad,

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"a pretty highland village surrounded by attractive scenery."

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I hope to discover in this beautiful landscape that not all the

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immigrants that hoofed it from the British Isles were two-legged.

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With only around 600,000 inhabitants,

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Vermont is one of the least populated of the United States.

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And its picturesque mountain villages and gently sloping pastures

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are symbols of rural America.

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Vermont is synonymous with dairy farming, which accounts for 70% of

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the state's agricultural sales.

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I'm led to believe that this important industry began at around

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the time of my Appleton's at this farm, which was set up by Frederick Billings.

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Christine Scales is an expert on his work.

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Christine, as I would expect of Vermont, it looks very green.

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The agriculture seems to be thriving.

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But it wasn't always so, I believe?

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No, so before Frederick Billings moved here and bought this farm,

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you wouldn't believe how differently it looked.

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There was a lot of deforestation going on and also there was a rise

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in commercial farming. Sheep were a huge industry in Vermont at this time.

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They were very hard on the land, so they caused a lot of erosion.

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So, not only were there no trees but there weren't any roots from the

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grass, so it was very barren.

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What was Billings' innovation then?

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Billings believed in conservation.

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He began reforesting the land.

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He purchased this farm as a way to show sustainable and modern

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practices in the hopes that other farmers would do the same.

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Billings grew up in Vermont and qualified as a lawyer.

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But after gold was discovered in California, he joined the rush west

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in 1849 to make his fortune.

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He became one of the richest men in that state, before selling up and

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returning to Vermont in 1865.

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In business, he made his mark leading the completion of the

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Northern Pacific Railroad across the continent,

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while at home, he pioneered progressive ideas and techniques

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on his 270-acre farm.

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So this is Brianna, one of our Jersey cows.

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Hello, Brianna.

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-Very attractive breeds.

-She is.

-What makes them good milking cows?

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So Jersey cows have a higher butterfat content than other dairy cows.

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Did Frederick Billings import Jersey cows from the island of Jersey?

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He did, yeah. In 1871, he brought over the first Jersey cows for this

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farm because he wanted to make butter as his cash crop.

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And how well did the Jerseys do here?

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They do great here. The climate is very similar to the isle of Jersey.

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They don't really like to be too hot,

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so Vermont is perfect for them.

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Our Jersey cows are known all over the country

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and all over the world. We have really good genetic stock.

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Billings was passionate about responsible and sustainable techniques,

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and wanted to spread his ideas among fellow Vermont farmers.

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He built this model dairy farm,

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incorporating the very latest technologies into its creamery.

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How does the process begin?

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So, you would bring in the big milk pails

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and you put them first into the Cooley Creamer.

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And it could be lowered and raised by these gears over here.

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And they would sit in the creamer for about a day, overnight or so.

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And that would allow the milk to separate into skim milk and cream.

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You could see that happening here because there are little windows

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that show you where the milk would be, the skim milk,

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and where the cream would be at the top.

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Once that had all separated,

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they would take the gutters and move them around.

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So the cream went into here, which is the tempering vat.

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The water would run down through the water jacket and get heated up

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by the fire in here, and then back up through these tubes

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here and then down into the tempering vat.

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So you could adjust how much hot water or how much cold water.

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-That's the height of modernity at the time?

-Yeah, absolutely.

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A lot of places didn't even have running water.

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And what is this cradle?

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So, once the cream had reached the proper acidity,

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they'd put it into the swing churn.

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In order to make butter,

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you have to take cream and you have agitate it.

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So that's what this does.

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It actually rocks back and forth as it's suspended from the ceiling.

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That's absolutely marvellous. How inventive!

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Billings really was quite a character, wasn't he?

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He was, yeah. He wanted all the latest technology.

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And they wanted people to be able to come here and see it in action,

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and hopefully put it into practice on their own farms.

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At its peak, Billings Farm produced 5,000 pounds of butter annually,

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and sent it by rail to customers in Boston and New York.

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With his pioneering techniques,

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Frederick Billings laid the foundations for Vermont's modern dairy industry.

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I'm leaving Vermont for an excursion into the White Mountains of

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New Hampshire.

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I'm in search of a very special railway...

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..the first of its kind in the world...

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..and one that I've long wanted to ride.

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"The Mount Washington Railroad,

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"begun in 1866, opened 1869.

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"The grade is enormous, being 3,596 feet in three miles.

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"In places, one foot in three."

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This was actually the world's first-ever mountain climbing cog railway.

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And Appleton's feels obliged to describe the technology.

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"The track is of three rails.

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"The centre rail is like a wrought iron ladder

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"into which fits a cogwheel

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"which fairly pulls the train up the mountain."

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Oh, and did I mention...

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..that they're running steam?

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TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

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For railway enthusiasts like me,

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this is one to tick off the bucket list.

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-Good morning, what a lovely day.

-Indeed it is.

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What do you think it will be like at the top?

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It's going to be warmer than it normally is.

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Should be in for some good views today.

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-I'm in luck. Thank you so much.

-Indeed. Welcome aboard.

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TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

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The steam locomotive is designed specifically to work on the steep

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gradient and to power from the rear,

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pushing the passenger carriage up the mountain.

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We've roared into action.

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We must be doing, oh, I don't know, 3mph at the moment.

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And the track stretches ahead of me like a giant roller-coaster.

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This is going to be a fun ride.

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TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

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Hello. So you seem to be on the sun deck.

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Well, how come you're out here, what are you doing?

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Well, we're watching the tracks on the way up.

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Got to make sure nothing's in our way and everything is all set to continue moving forward.

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OK, you've got me nervous now.

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-What could be the problem with the track?

-Debris.

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There are a couple of points where hikers hike right over the tracks.

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You never know.

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I have never been on a railroad like this before.

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It looks like something out of a cowboy movie.

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It's kind of rough-and-ready with all these timbers, isn't it?

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-Yeah, it's old-school.

-It's old-school.

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Also, I noticed we're not actually touching the ground.

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You know, in normal railroads, the tyres are right in the ground,

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but, in our case, it's up on these trestles. You know,

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that was the way they built it back then.

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It's a lot easier to maintain that way.

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Are you telling me that our whole journey, right up to the summit,

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-we're going to be on trestles?

-The whole way.

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-Over three miles.

-Do me a favour, will you?

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Keep your eye on the track.

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The railroad was designed and built by wealthy New Hampshire engineer

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Sylvester Marsh, who, following a bout of illness, sought fresh air.

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He hiked up Mount Washington but got lost near the summit.

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He decided to make the mountain more accessible and created this

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masterpiece, known at the time as Marsh's Railroad to the Moon.

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This is a breathtaking journey.

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We've reached gradients of one in three,

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meaning that the rear of the train is left far below us.

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TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

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In fact, at the steepest part of the journey, a section called Jacob's Ladder,

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passengers at the front of the train are 14 feet higher than those at the

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back. The whole line is built on trestles and if you look at down at

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them, I mean, they look like matchsticks to me.

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It all looks so flimsy.

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And every now and again, the trestle rises up to 30 feet in the air and

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you just think, "What is holding us in place?"

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As a national historic engineering landmark,

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this railway is one of the great tourist attractions of New England.

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Hello, sir.

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Tell me, have you ever been on Mount Washington before?

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Yes, I have, many times.

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Many times, what, on the train?

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No, this is my first time on the train.

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So, how are you coming here before?

0:21:130:21:15

We walked up.

0:21:150:21:16

It's quite a tough climb, I suppose?

0:21:170:21:19

-Yes, it is.

-And what are you making of the full train ride,

0:21:190:21:22

-now you're experiencing?

-Oh, it's wonderful.

0:21:220:21:25

-A lot of fun.

-I think it's fantastic.

0:21:250:21:27

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

0:21:270:21:33

And with one last shudder, we reach the top of the mountain.

0:21:430:21:50

We made it. Well done, everybody. We made it.

0:21:540:21:57

We made it.

0:21:570:21:58

-I wasn't sure we would but we made it.

-My hero.

0:21:580:22:01

-What's the word for it?

-Awesome.

0:22:050:22:07

-Wow.

-Awesome is right.

-Awesome.

0:22:070:22:11

This railroad is impressive not just because it overcomes the steep

0:22:140:22:18

gradient, but also because it functions in the face of another

0:22:180:22:22

major challenge...

0:22:220:22:24

..Mount Washington's exceptional weather.

0:22:240:22:27

Despite being just over 6,000 feet high,

0:22:310:22:34

this mountain experiences extremes

0:22:340:22:37

of wind and cold which can come on in an instant,

0:22:370:22:42

and have contributed to the loss of well over 100 lives since records

0:22:420:22:47

began in 1849.

0:22:470:22:49

Appleton's says,

0:22:510:22:53

"Visitors to Washington should always go well-clad.

0:22:530:22:56

"The range of the thermometer even in midsummer

0:22:560:22:59

"is from 30 to 45 degrees."

0:22:590:23:01

And, of course, that is Fahrenheit.

0:23:010:23:03

"Here is the US Signal Service Observatory, which is occupied in winter

0:23:030:23:09

"and which has recorded a temperature of 58 degrees below zero,

0:23:090:23:14

"while the wind blew with a velocity of 190mph."

0:23:140:23:19

This must be one of the most extraordinary weather stations on the planet.

0:23:190:23:22

This intriguing facility dates back to 1870,

0:23:240:23:28

when a group of determined scientists embarked on an expedition

0:23:280:23:32

to observe the mountain's winter weather.

0:23:320:23:34

It was the first of its kind in the world,

0:23:370:23:40

and today, I'm meeting meteorologist, Mike Carman.

0:23:400:23:43

Mike, I've been up many mountains, many much higher than this one,

0:23:460:23:50

which don't seem to have quite as extreme weather as Mount Washington.

0:23:500:23:53

-Why is that?

-Yeah,

0:23:530:23:55

there's a few reasons why Mount Washington sees the extreme

0:23:550:23:58

weather that it does, even though we're only a 6,300 foot mountain.

0:23:580:24:01

And our topographic map here sort of nicely demonstrates why that is.

0:24:010:24:05

And just to orient you, this is Boston down here,

0:24:050:24:08

here is Portland, Maine.

0:24:080:24:10

And these are the White Mountains right in here.

0:24:100:24:12

And then here we are right on top of the summit of Mount Washington right

0:24:120:24:15

now. We're the highest peak north of North Carolina

0:24:150:24:19

and east of the Black Hills of South Dakota.

0:24:190:24:21

So you have to go back thousands of miles to the west

0:24:210:24:24

before you hit an elevation higher than Mount Washington.

0:24:240:24:27

And then, in addition to that, we have

0:24:270:24:28

a lot of storms constantly passing through New England.

0:24:280:24:31

Our storm track map very nicely demonstrates the amount of low

0:24:310:24:36

pressure systems that are constantly coming through

0:24:360:24:39

the North-eastern United States here,

0:24:390:24:41

and you could see almost any storm that originates out west

0:24:410:24:44

eventually will make its way up into the North-east,

0:24:440:24:46

passing very close to or sometimes directly over the summit

0:24:460:24:49

of our mountain here.

0:24:490:24:51

As these storm tracks arrive at Mount Washington

0:24:510:24:54

and intersect with local weather systems,

0:24:540:24:57

the conditions can be terrifying.

0:24:570:25:00

It's the duty of the staff to record the data.

0:25:010:25:04

They're used to chart climate trends and to provide forecasts and weather

0:25:040:25:09

warnings, crucial to protecting property and lives.

0:25:090:25:13

This is our weather wall.

0:25:160:25:17

This is where all of our weather instrumentation is located that's

0:25:170:25:20

representing everything that is going on outside

0:25:200:25:23

as we speak right now.

0:25:230:25:24

My 19th-century guidebook talks

0:25:240:25:26

about a wind that was recorded here of 190mph. Is that plausible?

0:25:260:25:31

Yeah, actually, we've exceeded even that mark is well.

0:25:310:25:34

Back in April of 1934, which was less than two years

0:25:340:25:36

after we started up here, we recorded a wind gust of 231mph.

0:25:360:25:42

And at the time, that was a world-record wind speed.

0:25:420:25:45

That record has since been broken.

0:25:450:25:47

But for almost 60 years, that was our claim to fame,

0:25:470:25:50

is the highest wind ever known by mankind.

0:25:500:25:53

Mercifully, it's not blowing anything like that today,

0:25:530:25:57

as I'm keen to see the instruments

0:25:570:25:59

which record such extreme wind speeds.

0:25:590:26:01

They're located atop the station's tower.

0:26:010:26:05

Wow, we're on top of the world.

0:26:090:26:11

-Seems that way.

-And so these are your famous instruments, are they?

0:26:110:26:14

Yeah, these are all of our wind instruments that we're maintaining

0:26:140:26:17

year-round, and you can see they're all vane-ing into the wind and

0:26:170:26:20

functioning very nicely right now.

0:26:200:26:22

The weather is amazingly changeable, isn't it?

0:26:220:26:24

One moment, you can see for miles, and then suddenly visibility is,

0:26:240:26:27

what, 50 yards?

0:26:270:26:29

In the winter, how bad can it be up here? What do you have to do?

0:26:290:26:31

We're coming up the ladders like we just did here.

0:26:310:26:34

Icy ladders at times.

0:26:340:26:36

And we're coming up into heavy blowing snow, thick rime ice,

0:26:360:26:39

those sorts of things. And we're taking a crowbar and manually

0:26:390:26:42

knocking the ice off of all these instruments.

0:26:420:26:44

Sometimes fighting the strength of 100mph winds to do it.

0:26:440:26:48

And what makes someone want to do that?

0:26:480:26:50

As a meteorologist, you kind of learn about Mount Washington from a

0:26:500:26:53

young age as a place of extremes and I know, for me, this is the place to

0:26:530:26:57

experience things I'll probably

0:26:570:26:59

never experience anywhere else in my life.

0:26:590:27:01

It was English Puritan Pilgrims that landed in Massachusetts,

0:27:160:27:21

and yet that colony led the revolution.

0:27:210:27:23

So is it paradoxical that so many things still have a British flavour?

0:27:230:27:29

The familiar place names like Cambridge and Plymouth.

0:27:290:27:33

In Boston, the brick-terraced houses, the gentleman's clubs.

0:27:330:27:37

At Yale, the rivalry with Harvard,

0:27:370:27:40

played out on the Thames River in New London.

0:27:400:27:44

In Vermont, the Jersey cows.

0:27:440:27:47

I think it is ironic, but, then again, this is New England.

0:27:470:27:52

Next time, on my travels,

0:27:550:27:57

I'll discover how the other half do rural retreats...

0:27:570:28:01

My goodness, Lawrence, I think this

0:28:010:28:03

is one of the biggest rooms I've ever seen.

0:28:030:28:05

..learn of the territory lost in a humiliating military blunder...

0:28:050:28:10

The border between the United States and Canada would be much further

0:28:100:28:14

south than it is now?

0:28:140:28:15

Much further south.

0:28:150:28:18

..and seek thrills of Olympic proportions.

0:28:180:28:21

Every part of me has been shaken to bits!

0:28:230:28:26

And I've been turned almost upside down.

0:28:260:28:29

HE LAUGHS

0:28:290:28:30

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