The Back Alleys Of Anchortown Here's another frame of one of my favorite relatively obscure ARR operations looking back long ago to my first full year in Alaska. While only a half mile from downtown and easily accessible this is a side of the Alaska Railroad rarely seen by visitors or photographed by railfans. The 1500 afternoon yard job is seen switching out a car at the AS&G Katmai siding off the weedy 70 pound rail of the ARR's APU spur in downtown Anchorage. This obscure industrial lead offers the lucky individual a chance to view a more traditional aspect of single car railroading the contrasts greatly with the common image of the ARR as a modern carrier specializing in unit trains and first class passenger service. The old wooden close clearance sign and abandoned industrial sidings harken back to an earlier era on the ARR. The ARR's venerable MP15s are in their last summer of service and will soon be off the roster. 1554 here as an EMD MP15DC built October 1980 and as Kelly’s Creek and Northwestern 2. It came to the ARR in 1993 when the KCNW was abandoned and now lives on in the GATX lease fleet painted blue and black as GMTX 206. But this lead survives and in fact a few years later it was relaid with heavier used rail, ballasted and the unused turnouts were straight railed in a general upgrade that caused it to lose this decidedly '1970s Milwaukee Road' feel! Anchorage, Alaska |
