The Alaska Railroad Palmer branch or A Branch runs from Matanuska Junction MP 150.7 to the current end of track at MP A6.7, the Palmer Depot is at MP A6.5. At one point in time, the tracks went through Palmer and followed the banks of the Matanuska River to Sutton and served several coal mines. The branch was originally built to Chickaloon to haul coal from the mines destined for the U.S. Navy as a source of fuel for their ships. By the late 1920s the U.S. Navy had completed converting the ships from coal to oil, so the Chickaloon mines were closed and by the end of the 1920s, early 1930s the track from the coal washery in Sutton to Chickaloon was pulled up, and the right of way became the Glenn Highway. Today very little remains of that portion of the branch line, the last Howe truss bridge in Alaska near Chickaloon, and bridge remains at King River.
The rest of the branch line became the Sutton Branch, and had it's own subdivision with said name. In various places narrow gauge equipment was used to bring coal to the standard gauge line to be loaded into coal hauling cars. The mines up Moose Creek and Eska used the narrow gauge, but in places was converted to standard gauge. The locomotive on display next to the Palmer Depot was used in the Moose Creek area. Some roads in Palmer and Sutton are named after some of the mines that they were built for; Soapstone, Buffalo, Eska and Jonesville to name a few. Some roads in Sutton are also named after miners who lived and worked in the area.
The coal mines were a fuel source for the steam locomotives on the Alaska Railroad, so as the railroad transitioned from steam to diesel locomotives, the need of coal diminished. Some of the mines shut down because of this, but also due to prices or tapping out the coal source and so some of the short branches and spurs were pulled or put out of service such as Moose Creek spur and Eska. The power plants in the Anchorage area including the Ship Creek Power Plant in the rail yard used coal as a source of fuel. Jonesville Coal Mine was at the summit of a 6% grade.
By the late 1960s most of the power plant in the Anchorage area converted from coal to natural gas and the last plant converted in 1968/69 and Jonesville stopped producing coal in late 1968. In 1969 Jonesville Coal Mine closed and the last of the coal trains ran in the fall of that year, ending just over 50 years of coal mining in the Matanuska Valley. The rail was pulled from Jonesville mine to just south of Moose Creek and was used in the small rail yard in Valdez, though some rail is still in place. The grade is still under Alaska Railroad ownership today.
My father lived in Sutton for many years from the early 1980s to 2004, but lived in Alaska during the coal mining days and remembered how the area used to look like and the trains that ran the line. I was fortunate enough to meet a few living coal miners from Jonesville as a young child, and also participated in the annual Sutton Coal Miner's Ball that recognizes the miners of the era. As I grew up, we drove out onto the Matanuska River via the old railroad grade to the river canyon known as Lion's Head. We drove up to the mines many times and I got to see many remains of buildings and equipment now long removed by the National Guard in the early 2000s. All this inspired me to try and document the area and how it looks in modern times, before time turns everything into a distant memory and images taken during the heyday. In 2014, and again in 2016 I hiked the the grade from end of steel in Palmer, along the river to where old railroad cars become visible that were dumped during the last years of operation as riprap. The first hike in 2014 I photographed Palmer Yard, and some of the remains of rolling stock, late in 2014 I returned with my wife and a friend. In April of 2016 we hiked the grade again, past the observation coach Yukon close to a mile, then a couple of weeks later we hiked the Moose Creek area photographing the old coal loading area, the bridge remains of Moose Creek and the surrounding areas. A couple of times I drove out to Sutton and onto the river and managed to take photos of more bridge remains south of Sutton, and the Jonesville mine. I will include my best guess of mile post locations in my photos, and descriptions.
This year I plan to re-visit and go more in depth with locations and documenting the rolling stock and bridge remains along with a GPS. I hope you enjoy the photos and descriptions of the Sutton branch as much as I enjoyed the hikes to take these photos. In this first photo, we see the Sourdough (early coal train) at the Eska Creek spur. This later became the wye to Jonesville mine.
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On November 17, 2014 myself my longtime girlfriend (later to be my wife) and a friend happened to take an impromptu hike on the old grade between Palmer and Moose Creek. Unfortunately, my camera had died, so only a few photos were taken on a cell phone. Some photos did turn out well. It was a colder day, the ground was frozen and a Matanuska River breeze reminded us that soon winter would be in full swing.
The photos that I am including are of one of the Hoppers around the MP A8 mile, the Yukon, and also some unknown frames. There are a few detail shots that may be useful for modeling. |
On April 18 2016, my fiance Moriah Campbell and myself walked the railroad grade from the trail use parking lot at Eagle Street to somewhere in the MP A10 mile. We started about 8:00 am, it was a sunny warm day. We took our time knowing it was going to be an all day adventure, and lunch was included. Every time I venture on the old grade I find something new. If you pay attention and explore every little trail that goes off the side of the grade, you will find trucks, sections of rail and joint bars, couplers, brake wheels, and other railroad remains.
We hiked along past the odd ballast hoppers which marks the beginning of the mass amount of dumped cars, to the Yukon and surrounding areas there, to a spot where the river had washed out a good sized chunk of roadbed. While going past the cars at the MP A8-A9 miles, I looked for the old camp car tender Pat Durand photographed and took measurements in 2003 but I could not find it. It may be buried under the silt now. We also looked for remains of the telegraph poles that lined the track, from what I could figure out the telegraph lines must have been on the west side of the track up the side of the hill. I did find a couple of "stumps" that could have been cut poles. This is something I will be looking more in depth to on my next history seeking trek.
In this next set of photos in my endeavor to document the Sutton Branch, the photos have been repeated from previous hikes but also show some of the new things discovered. |
