WASILLA, ALASKA: WHERE THAT LONESOME WHISTLE BLOWS Today is the first day of school in the Matanuska Susitna Borough School District. When I set to catch yesterday morning’s northbound Denali Star, I knew the Frequent School Bus (FSB) would be all over the place, making its final practice runs ahead of today’s start. While I generally leave sightings and inclusions of the FSB strictly to chance, I decided to make a special effort to catch the FSB and the Star together to celebrate the first day of school. The station itself would be the place with the best chance as the Star would stop for a bit there to pick up passengers. First, though, I drove along the Highway to see if I could find the FSB waiting in parking lots, as the Frequent School Bus always does. I found four in the Carr’s parking lot, plus a few at other spots. I drove into the Carr’s lot and began to try to figure out the best place to catch all four FSB big in the foreground with the passing Star small in the background. Usually, there are not many people in that section of the parking lot but on this day there were. It would be too hard to avoid flying over them, so I decided to just head to the station area. As I did, two of the four left. Anyway, PHOTO 1: I was surprised to see Locomotive 4328, the SD70MAC painted in the original 1947 AuRoRa color scheme to celebrate the July 15 Centennial of the Alaska Railroad, lead the Star past the two FSB still parked in the Carr’s lot. PHOTO 2: As the Star picked up passengers at Wasilla’s depot-less train station, the FSB joined the vehicles on the south side of the tracks that had to stop to wait for the Star to continue its journey north to Fairbanks. As the Star slowly departed the driver of the tiny silver car in front of the FSB opened her door, leaned out, raised her phone and took her own photos of the Star and the Wilderness Express bear cars. 8/15/23
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