Steam & Excursion > Cog engine in Arizona

This might be old news, but last Saturday I visited the Grand Canyon Railway in Williams, AZ (for the first time in about 10 years) and was surprised to find Manitou & Pikes Peak #4 stuffed and mounted beside the station parking lot. I assume it's here because Phil Anschutz owns both the GCRy and the Broadmoor Hotel near Colorado Springs (and thus the cog railway). I understand #4 was the engine that was restored and occasionally operated a few years ago, but I suppose that's not it the new owner's plans for the cog railway. I wonder if #4 was the last Vaulclain Compound locomotive to see operation?

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She ran as recent as 2016.    Sad to see we wont get to see steam up there anymore.   I did the drive last week, and its impressive!  

Cog railway down into the canyon?  Gotta be better then riding those burros.

the new rack is different, not sure if it could be retrofitted  perhaps after reconstruction?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/19 00:08 by dan.

While they're replacing the track, I wonder how hard it would be to lay a water pipe next to it so a steamer could go all the way to the top (okay, I know that's a pipe dream).

Thanks for posting this.  I had never heard that #4 had been removed from the M&PPRR.  Sad to see that they have given up on that interesting piece of their history.

Martin

Just doesn't make sense for them to get rid of it.

tomstp Wrote:
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> Just doesn't make sense for them to get rid of it.

Why not?

Regards,

Dave

Kind of a sad development for sure. We rode behind #4 up Engleman Canyon on it's 100th anniversary celebration and bought a nice large litho poster in the gift shop. As the other fellow mentions, it ran intermittantly until 2016 but had some steam leaks the shop didn't have time to fix...at least that's what I was told.

#4 was delivered directly to Manitou Springs by the fabled Colorado Midland so we always thought some "connection" to the old CM had survived in #4.

tomstp Wrote:
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> Just doesn't make sense for them to get rid of it.

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Thanks for posting this.  I had never heard that
> #4 had been removed from the M&PPRR.  Sad to see
> that they have given up on that interesting piece
> of their history.


Short Story:  They Didn't.

They moved it here as for storage so it's not in the way during the rebuild of The M&PP