Reflecting On Three Decades From December 1984 until this day nearly 32 years later big coal trains from the Alaskan interior to tidewater at Seward were a staple of Alaska Railroad business and a showpiece of the state's desire to diversify it's natural resource exports. But times change and markets shift and with this train it would finally end....forever? I don't know. But there hasn't been an ounce of coal moved south to Resurrection Bay since I took this photo half a decade ago....so that's not a bet I'd take. But the rails remain, the miners still dig up in Healy, and the dock beckons....so I suppose it's possible.... Anyway, with 52 loaded aluminum hoppers and four SD70MACs running 2x2 DPU this train would turn out to be the final loaded export coal train to run to Seward. After three decades of exporting coal from Usibelli Mine on the north side of the Alaska Range to markets in Korea, China, Japan, Chile and beyond the market had simply evaporated. In 2011 the ARR purchased 70 additional aluminum hoppers to cycle two complete train sets making two 720 mile round trips per week and delivered just about 1.1 million metric tons to 18 ships. That was the best year in the history of the Alaskan export market, and in fact we (I was Superintendent at the time) were working on plans to get to over 2 million! But from those halcyon days the business evaporated just as quickly as hit had boomed, and four years later only four colliers called on the terminal at the head of Resurrection Bay. With only one ship for all of 2016 the ARRC called it quits and laid off the 16 employees in Seward, mothballed the facility, and sold off the hoppers. The south end of the railroad has been pretty quiet since...seeing only summer passenger trains and no more freights as you can count on one hand in a good year. So this was a sad day....a sad day indeed. But for a moment revel in the site of the blue and gold SD70MACs 40005 & 4009 on the rear of the train reflecting in the placid water of Upper Trail Lake as they cross the Trail River bridge at MP 29.5....less than 30 miles to go and that will be a wrap. Moose Pass, Alaska |
