Cog Railway Equipment

Colorado Railroad Museum receives Manitou & Pikes Peak cars

February 22, 2019

GOLDEN, Colo. – The Colorado Railroad Museum has received three power and passenger cars from the Broadmoor Pikes Peak Cog Railway, formerly the Manitou & Pike’s Peak Railway. Nos. 7, 9, and 12 were trucked from Manitou Springs to the museum with one car arriving each day Feb. 14-16. The railroad donated the cars, with the museum only having to pay the cost of moving them to Golden. Locomotive No. 9 and passenger coach No. 12 arrived just days after the museum board of trustees approved adding them to the permanent rolling stock collection. Donald Tallman, Colorado Railroad Museum executive director, says, “We were very excited when they offered them to the Museum. They are such an iconic part of Colorado railroad history. We own the first steam locomotive that they used on Pikes Peak. No. 7 was the first self-propelled gas powered railcar, built in 1938 in Colorado. It was so successful, they replaced the steam locomotives with a series of diesel electric powered cars. No. 9 was one of the early diesels that would have been used with passenger coach No. 12, giving us a cool train set from the 1950s. They are all complete and in great condition.”

Tallman says that in the future the cars might be displayed on a hillside at the museum befitting their past as mountain climbing rolling stock and motive power.

The Broadmoor Pikes Peak Cog Railway is a cog railway that operates from Manitou Springs, near Colorado Springs, and climbs 8.9-miles up famous Pike’s Peak. The railroad closed in 2017 is beginning a $100 million project to replace track, rack rail, railcars, and to refurbish the existing depot. The railroad is scheduled to reopen in 2021.

Steve Glischinski / TRAINS magazine