to the Pike's Peak summit by the train

It has also been possible to reach the Peak by a toll road.  A car sits on a special turntable at Inspiration Point.

 

This year marks 120 years of operation of the Abt system cog wheel railway from Manitou to the summit - 14,110 feet (4,301 m) - of Pikes Peak in Colorado. The track length is 8.9 miles or 14.3 km in standard gauge. 

A number of steam locomotives were built for the line by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, all rack-only locomotives with steeply inclined boilers to keep them level on the average 16% gradients.  

A gasoline (petrol) powered multiple unit was built to supplement the steam locomotives in 1938, and is still operation, although now in a different livery. Next came five 'streamlined' diesel locomotives from General Electric, which were equipped with matching passenger cars, acquired from 1939 onward. These slowly replaced the steam locomotives, though some steam operations persisted until the 1960s as backup power and to operate the snow-clearing train where their greater weight meant they were less likely to derail. A number of the steam locomotives are now on static display, in Manitou and elsewhere, and the Railway still has an operational steam locomotive (number 4) and an original coach.  However, the steam locomotive was actually taken out of service for many years before being retrieved from a museum and brought back to service in 1980.

Diesel multiple units were acquired from the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works in Winterthur in 1964, and more later. In Europe this railway would probably have been electrified, but the large capital cost of railway electrification has never appealed much in America.

The line now operates year-round. Website.