Pikes Peak Cog Railway Project

Sarah Schram, brand manager for Wayne Dalton, recently made a trip to Colorado to visit Mountain Fox Garage Doors, one of our dealers. Sarah kept a journal during her trip and is our guest blogger this week! Learn about Mountain Fox Garage Doors and the special door they installed at a location that will leave you wondering how they did it! 

Colorado is one of my favorite places in the world. The snow, the mountains and the crisp, clean air – It doesn’t get much better than that to me. Last year, one of our southern Colorado dealers, , installed a custom-fit door at Pike’s Peak Cog Railway. Wanting to see the door and get some photos of our Wayne Dalton doors in an idyllic, snowy setting, I set out for Colorado and Mountain Fox Garage Doors.

Pike’s Peak is one of Colorado’s tallest mountains, a rocky behemoth rising up more than 14,000 feet. The Pike’s Peak Cog Railway transports mountain visitors up the entire 14,115-foot slope to the summit year-round. Opened in 1891, it is the highest cog railway in the world and visitors can see five states from its summit on a clear day.

Last year, the Railway started looking for a door solution for the barn that houses its rail cars. This door presented an interesting challenge for Mountain Fox due to the incline of the mountain and that the barn sits on railroad tracks (naturally). They ultimately chose Wayne Dalton’s Rolling Steel Door Model 800 as their rolling steel barn door.

Curtis Fox, owner of Mountain Fox Garage Doors, hasn’t always worked in the door business. He spent more than 15 years in Europe working in Investor Relations. After deciding to come back to the states to raise his family, he had the opportunity to purchase a door business. When the deal fell through, Fox decided to forge ahead into garage doors by starting his own company. Thus, Mountain Fox Garage Doors was born in 2006. Fox credits Wayne Dalton as an instrumental partner in helping him become a “door guy” and start his company, through personalized training and great customer service. Always ready for a challenge, Fox did not shy away from the unique requirements of putting a door on railroad tracks on the side of a mountain, despite the creativity and increased time that it required.

Fox and Wayne Dalton worked to build a rolling steel door specially fit for this particular application. The end result is a custom fit door that allows the train operators to easily move a train in or out of the barn.