Photographs courtesy of Jonathan Fischer

The Budd cars were new to the Alaska Railroad in the winter of 1986. I was interested in riding the train to identify possible locations to shoot the train with Denali in the background. 

The first shot is (I believe, please correct me) at Sunshine, with the train motoring toward Talkeetna. The next couple shots are on board the train, at Chase and Curry. I made a note of the location at Curry. It took a few years, but eventually I did get the shot I wanted. 

It was a friendly affair aboard the train. A remember a couple airline pilots being aboard (they flew up for the weekend to ride the train). The crew didn't mind if I rode with them up front.

Next, a stop at Gold Creek, with the section house intact. Then it's Gold Creek (MP 264) and Canyon (MP 269.2)

The snowplow 1986-02-26-p7-red-budd-trip-0509 looks to be the former wye at Chulitna.

From there it's upgrade toward Talkeetna. There was less vegetation then, and during winter, a lot more is visible. This was the most helpful part of the trip, as I identified several locations that eventually yielded results.

Finally, we arrived, on an absolutely perfect Alaskan day, at Hurricane. I'm still not sure what the final image is all about, that's not me in the picture.