Three years and $100 million later, the Pikes Peak Cog Railway is back on track. It was not only a blow to tourism, but had a severe economic impact on the quaint town of Manitou Springs. But with safety concerns over the 126-year-old tracks and the now-dated equipment, The Broadmoor Hotel decided not to reopen for the 2018 season. In 2017, more than 300,000 visitors rode the rails to the top. The Pikes Peak Cog Railway kept pace with the demand, running eight adventures per day up and down the mountain. Over the next seventy-eight years, technology would advance and tourism would increase. The following year, General Electric delivered the world’s first diesel-electric cog locomotive. In 1938, the first-of-its kind gas-powered, twenty-three-passenger rack-rail car made its maiden run up Pikes Peak. Engine #2 sits on the northeast corner of Manitou Avenue and Deer Path Avenue in Manitou Springs. Locomotive #5 is on permanent display at The Broadmoor Hotel. To this day, The Broadmoor Hotel still owns the Railway. Simmons sold the Pikes Peak Cog Railway to Spencer Penrose, owner of The Broadmoor Hotel, for $50,000. In 1925, after losing money for many years, Mr. The locomotives were not connected to the coaches, but pushed the train cars up the mountain (pictured on the plaque below), and preceded them on the descent to regulate the speed. During the era of steam, a total of six engines were ordered. The first passenger train arrived at the summit of Pikes Peak in June 1891. Three steam locomotives were ordered and delivered by 1890. The inventor’s brain went into overdrive, and the Pikes Peak Cog Railway was conceived.īeing a man of action, track construction began right away using 150 Italian laborers transporting materials via wheelbarrows and mules. Simmons was relaxing in a mineral bath in Manitou Springs when someone mentioned how nice it would be if there was a train to the top. After a gruelling two-day trek to the 14,110 foot Peak on a mule, Mr. Simmons invented an insulator for telegraph wires that were being used on the summit of Pikes Peak. Not only was he the inventor of what we now know as the Simmons Beautyrest Mattress Company, Mr. In the late 1880s, Zalmon Simmons visited the Pikes Peak Region to check on one of his inventions.
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