Gloucester has two of the oldest continuously operating marine railways in the nation—special facilities where ships are pulled out of the water so they can be maintained or rebuilt.
“Six-hundred-ton boats are blocked up, lashed down, and hauled ashore by a double-shot of one-inch chain worked off a series of huge steel reduction gears. The gears were machined a hundred years ago and haven’t been touched since….Tourists blithely wander past machinery that could rip their summer homes right off their foundations.”
Sebastian Junger The Perfect Storm
