Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is a vast installation of over 84,000 acres to the north and east of downtown and within the boundaries of the municipality of Anchorage. In years past both of the bases that make up the combined facility (created when the adjacent Army and Air Force installations were merged in 2010) were laced with rails delivering everything from jet fuel, to coal, to munitions all hauled in and out by the Alaska Railroad. By the 2000s, however the Air Force's trackage was moribund and the Army's was rusted and little used, providing only storage for fleets of government surplus railcars.

However the Army was in the process of designing and building a new yard with circus style loading ramps and even funded a fleet of modern 89 ft wood decked flat cars that that ARR was allowed to equip with twist locks for intermodal service except when called into government service for unit deployments.

Prior to the completion of the new trackage the Army called the old "loop" back into service to load four of the brand new cars. The loop was actually a balloon track more than 2.2 miles long with multiple siding cutting from side to side through the middle formerly serving warehouses and loading docks.

In my role at the time as Director of Anchorage Terminal Ops I was on site to watch the yard job with one of our MP15s pull the loads of Strykers off the old trackage deep within the facility. This was the one and only time I saw a movement out on the trackage seen in these photos and it is all long gone now.

February 27, 2008 on Fort Richardson, Alaska