Knik Crossing

In the ten years I lived in Alaska I only tried this shot once, not sure why I didn't try again.  I suppose it's because it took a bit of a walk to get this angle, but I'm glad I did once.

Here is the southbound weekly Winter Aurora passenger train back when it was a diminutive consist of just a baggage car, a single coach, and a diner trailing an SD70MAC/GP40-2 combo.  They are coming across the 800 foot long Knik River Bridge at MP 146.4.  This bridge dates from 1937 and consists of nine original 80 foot pony plate girder thru spans and one 100 foot span that dates from a 2004 rebuilding.  In that year the Alaska Railroad installed new concrete pilings and caps and shifted the old 80 foot spans over and installed a broad new 100 foot span, which is the one closest in this image and featuring a large yellow ARR logo.

The Knik River is 25 miles long flowing down from its start at the foot of Knik Glacier which is one of the largest ice fields in South Central Alaska flowing down off the Chugach Range.  The river here forms the boundary between the Matanuska-Susitna Borough at the Municipality of Anchorage which the train is entering, despite being 30 miles away from downtown still!  

In the distance 20 miles away almost due north sparkling in the afternoon spring light are the 6000 foot peaks of the Talkeetna Mountains surrounding Hatcher Pass.

Knik River
Municipality of Anchorage
Sunday April 8, 2012

Photo courtesy of Dave Blazejewski