To Shiny Rails

Had to do something rail-related today… Afterall, it’s National Train Day. So, having not been to this place yet since moving to Colorado Springs, it was off to the Pikes Peak Trolley Museum and Restoration Shop. The big surprise was finding a Southern Pacific (SP) Daylight car in their yard. The Daylight was an SP train that ran from San Francisco to Los Angeles along the coastline from 1937 to 1974. It was painted in bright orange and red (“daylight colors”). The car is currently marked MCRX 10400 and we were told it was originally a dining car that was later converted to a maintenance-of-way car. Another bit of a surprise was they had several Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority trolleys that would have been running in Philadelphia, PA about the time my Dad (Papa Bill) was growing up there or shortly thereafter. He may well have seen or even ridden one of these! The tour ends with a little ride on a trolley up and down a short display track. The bright orange HO trolley in the middle of the first picture below is a dead-ringer for one I ran on my Dad’s HO layout in Kansas City. The bright red Cog Railway car (in the pics below) last ran on the Cog Railway in 2017 (which is just before they began their $100 million renovation project – which is now complete).

Sam was in for the holidays from Germany, so among all the outings we did, a trip to the top of Pikes Peak via The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway was in order. And indeed it was a fun trip as usual.