~ by Trevor Phipps ~
Community leaders in Woodland Park got an early glimpse last Saturday of the new Pikes Peak cog railway car obtained by the Downtown Development during a celebration at Woodland Station.
Parts of the celebration were delayed due to a snowstorm Friday.
As a result, the preliminary rail party turned into a gathering in which members of the community watched the process of the train getting put on the tracks. The arrival of the train has been the talk of the town after the cog railway company offered to donate it to the city of Woodland Park.
The first step to the process was to lay down the tracks that the train would sit on. The tracks arrived before last week so that when the train reached the town it could quickly be dropped onto the tracks.
During the event that started at noon, spectators ate hot dogs and listened to live music performed by a local brass band as they watched the setup begin.
The entire process took most of the day to complete but those who were interested stayed to watch the entire show. The setup started with the crew pulling the crane onto the Woodland Station property near where the cog railway tracks were already placed.
The semi-truck that carried the cog car up Ute Pass then pulled the train car up so that it was parallel of the crane and sitting just to the south of it. After they prepared 
the crane with the necessary tools, the crews then worked towards hooking the train car up to the crane.
At around 3 p.m., it started to look like the train car was getting close to be picked up by the crane and put into its permanent location. Then, as the crowd watched, the crane and its crew picked up the train car and lifted off of its transport trailer.
The crane brought the airborne train car around and then carefully placed it onto the tracks that were previously laid on the property just to the north of where the crane was placed. Once all of the cog railway wheels were set on the tracks, the crew then used the crane to move the cog car to the correct spot. Once the train was in place, the crane held the car while a crew came in and welded the wheels to the tracks.
Once the train was set down people in the crowd all clapped and cheered. Everyone in the large crowd was excited and happy to see the cog railway car make its way to downtown Woodland Park.
“I think this is a great opportunity for Woodland Park,” Woodland Park Main Street Coordinator Gail Wingerd said. “I think we can really utilize it to bring people to the downtown area. They can now stop and look and get out and shop, dine, play whatever they want to do. We love to have something to get people out on the streets of Woodland Park. It was a wonderful gift that was given to us from the cog.”
Cog railcar has a new home in Woodland ParkManitou Cog Railway train car put in a permanent location in Woodland Parks Midland Station yesterday around 3 pm. The car was put into place by a massive crane and was looked on by many local residents. The delivery of the car was delayed last week due to weather issues. Look for the full story in the upcoming issue of the mountain jackpot news.
Posted by TMJ News on Sunday, November 24, 2019
During the celebration and the setup, several city council and DDA members expressed much elation over the project and donation of the cog railway car. The transportation set up was all paid for by one private donor, Duane Carter of Carter Realty. The train will be renamed after Duane’s wife.
“It’s really nice that someone who has done well in Woodland Park wants to give back to Woodland Park,” DDA President Mary Jo Larsen said. “Thank god it’s here! We had it all coordinated and then the weather came and it wasn’t coordinated. And then we thought we had it again, and we didn’t. I tried to keep everyone on standby so that as soon as it could have happened, it did happen. We’re just happy it got here safe with the weather the way it was.”
