Ride the world's highest cog railway to a 14,115ft summit
Highest cog railway on earth
A nine-mile rack railway running from the middle of town to the summit of a fourteen-thousand-foot peak, first operated in 1891.
Why it's unique
This is the highest cog railway in the world and the highest railway of any kind in North America, climbing nine miles from the town to the 14,115ft summit of Pikes Peak. It uses the Abt rack system, a toothed centre rail invented in 1882 that lets the train hold grades up to 25 percent, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers has designated it a historic engineering landmark.
The claim is unusually clean. It is not a marketing superlative but a measured fact carried independently by ASME and the Colorado Encyclopedia as well as by the operator, and the alternative ways up the mountain are a toll road and a very long walk.
Before you go
Book well ahead. This sells out through the summer and is not a walk-up, and the depot is in the middle of a small town with limited parking.
Dress for the summit, not the depot. It is routinely 30 to 40F colder at the top, and the altitude is genuinely felt by anyone who arrived from sea level in the last day or two. The line was built by Zalmon Simmons, who invented the Beautyrest mattress and financed the railway after a mule ride up the mountain convinced him there had to be a better way.