Canadian National's AquaTrain

In May, the AquaTrain celebrated its 35th year of service by loading a record 50 rail cars onto the barge. "We usually sail with a full load, but this is the first time we've been able to load that many rail cars for one sailing," says Joe Schiller, CN's manager of the AquaTrain.

For the AquaTrain service, rail cars are loaded from the dock at Prince Rupert onto the barge which is then moved by tugboat to Whittier. From there, the rail cars are interchanged to the Alaska Railroad for delivery throughout the state. The one-way trip to Whittier takes about four days.

The AquaTrain operates year-round using the shortest water route to Alaska, and the largest rail car barge in the world. "Over the years," Schiller notes, "the AquaTrain has transported a variety of goods to Alaska, including frozen orange juice from Florida! We've also transported power generators from England via the Port of Montreal and steel from Japan via the Port of Vancouver," he adds.

CN offers daily freight service to Prince Rupert and connects with all major North American railroads to provide shippers with reliable and competitive service when shipping north to Alaska, or south to Canada and the United States.

A special thanks to Donna Semeniuk at Canadian National for giving permission to reprint this information.

Also see John's AquaTrain report from 6/25/18.

The last AquaTrain sailed in April 2021..
 
 

Photographs courtesy of Shane Durand. Whittier, 9/27/01

Question: What is the number of days for the voyage?

Answer: It takes about 3 days, currently the CN docks in Whittier about every 18 days

Question: Does CN uses smaller barges?

Answer: They carry about the same number of cars but the CN is railroad cars only no containers.

Question: How often does the Seattle barges dock?

Answer: Every Wednesday is the schedule although weather will cause delays.

Question: What is a typical Aqua train?

Answer: Three person crew on duty in Anchorage to bring a 125 south to Whittier. Three hour+ ride. Arrive in Whittier and yard train. Pull cars off barge in two cuts usually place in mountain track and bay track for us to work and air test. Crew then shoved empty cars on the barge. After barge is loaded the crew then doubles train together and departs Whittier on the 50 or 20 tunnel. Then arriving in Anchorage to end their shift. We try and complete this in a twelve hour shift for one crew start.