🚂 How did they build the crookedest railroad?

You live in Mill Valley, right at the foot of Mount Tam, the big mountain that watches over Marin. About a hundred and thirty years ago, a steam train started in Mill Valley and chugged all the way to the top of that mountain. But how do you get a heavy train up a mountain that steep? Picture one little steam engine with a load of riders waiting to climb. If the track went straight up, the wheels would just spin, like your sneakers slipping on a steep, wet slide. So the builders did something clever.

Instead of going straight up, they wrapped the track back and forth around the mountain, so each stretch was only a gentle climb. That made the trip about eight miles long, with around two hundred eighty curves! People called it the Crookedest Railroad in the World. The engine was special too. It was geared, which means it worked like the lowest gear on a bike: slow, but super strong. While we drive, try counting the curves on our road, and imagine one every few seconds.

With that many turns, the train probably got dizzy before the riders did. At the top, riders found a fancy tavern, a place to eat and rest, with views across the whole bay. Then they rode down in open cars with no engine at all, pulled only by gravity, with a brakeman keeping them slow. But a fire, and then a new road that let cars drive to the top, made the trains stop. Today the old track bed is a trail on Mount Tam, still curving up the mountain for hikers and bikers.