High Wide Alaska Style

This was one of the few days I actually got out taking photos of the Alaska Railroad in 2013. After being terminated as Superintendent earlier in the year I was pretty demoralized with the company and railroading in general so I pulled away from trains for a bit. Sadly this was a lost opportunity because time marched on as I chose to forgo countless opportunities for stunning photography that I have now come to regret. But at least for some reason I chose to go out to see this.

In 2013 the Alaska Railroad supported the building of the Matanuska Electric Association’s new Eklutna Generating Station, a 171-megawatt natural gas powered utility plant, powered by ten 18-cylinder Wartsila engines. The engines were each shipped from Europe by vessel to the Port of Anchorage where they were loaded on to rail for the 25 mile trip to Eklutna where they were offloaded on the stub track and transported the last mile to the site of the new plant being built. The Alaska Railroad leased a 20 axle depressed center flat car from Kasgro Inc.’s Specialized Rail Transport for the move. Floated up empty on the barge, the car was used to cycle back and forth 10 times with each of the 330 ton generator set units.

To read a bit more about this move check out page 8 at this link.

Here is one such move behind GP38-2 2002 headed north seen paused out of the way in Birchwood Yard waiting for a southbound gravel train and northbound cruise train to pass before they can head out on the main for last half dozen miles to the unloading site.

Birchwood, Alaska
Saturday September 14, 2013

Photo courtesy of Dave Blazejewski