All Aboard for Pike’s Peak

In my most recent selection of railroad-related images on Flickr, All Aboard!, the photo that received the most attention was this one of the Manitou & Pike’s Peak Railway. I’m imagining the seemingly backwards and tilted locomotive drew some curiousity. This is a cog railway, used to climb steep grades. The boiler in this steam locomotive is tipped because it needed to remain level when going up an incline. And for safety reasons, the locomotive actually pushed the train cars up the mountain instead of pulling them, which explains the orientation of the engine.

[Summit, cog wheel train, Manitou and Pike’s Peak Railway, Colo.] Photo by William Henry Jackson, ca. 1900. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/det.4a09176

The first train of this unusual cog railway reached Pike’s Peak, Colorado, a summit over 14,000 feet in elevation, in 1881. Here are some other photos from our collection that show the train in action, as well as the railway’s destination, the top of the mountain.

*Fourteen thousand feet above the sea, Pike’s Peak, Colorado, U.S.A.* Photo by Underwood & Underwood, 1894. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/stereo.1s11398

*Train descending Pike’s Peak, on the famous Cog Railway, Colorado, U.S.A.* Photo by H.C. White, 1906. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/stereo.1s11410

*Shoveling out the famous Cog Railway, 2,000 feet below the summit, Pike’s Peak, Colorado, U.S.A.* Photo by H.C. White, 1906. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/stereo.1s11412

The summit of Pike’s Peak. Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co., 1901. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.18299

*The summit of Pike’s Peak.* Photochrom by Detroit Photographic Co., 1901. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.18006

Though the trains look a bit different now, you can still take a ride to the top of Pike’s Peak today.

*Both coming and going are steep for the Pikes Peak Cog Railway, which ascends Colorado’s famous 14,115-foot Pikes Peak from its base station far below in Manitou Springs.* Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 2016 July 27. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/highsm.48903

Learn More:

Explore a variety of images depicting Pike’s Peak, in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, including more of the famous cog railway.
See photos of another famous cog railway in the United States, the Mount Washington Cog Railway of New Hampshire.
Revisit the Picture This series: Camera and Locomotive, which discusses the parallel development of two technologies in the 19th century: railroads and photography.

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