A master craftsman, he is fondly remembered. Over the next 30 years, Frick modernized and expanded shop facilities, oversaw installation of new and modern switches throughout the yard and along the line, and even designed and built a snowplow with shop personnel. The railway also hired a young Swiss engineer, Martin Frick, from Swiss Locomotive Works. In 1964, representatives from the Broadmoor went to Switzerland and contracted with the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works to provide two self-contained diesel-electric train cars which were instant successes. In 1938, a gasoline powered train car, produced by General Electric replaced the coal powered steam engines for the next 20 years. The boilers on the locomotives were tilted forward to be level while going up the 16% grade of the mountain. The first locomotives were steam powered and pushed the passenger care up the mountain. After losing money for a number of years, Simmons sold it in 1925 to Spencer Penrose, owner of the Broadmoor Hotel, for a reported $50,000. When it took two miserable days to scale the mountain by mule, Simmons decided to finance construction of the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway, which opened in 1891.

A New Yorker, he came to Colorado to examine telegraph insulators that he invented to carry telegraph wires to the Army Signal Station on top of Pikes Peak. Simmons, the inventor of the Simmons Beautyrest mattress.

The Cog Railway, the highest in the world, was started in 1889 by Zalmon G.

Cog train colorado