Working The Warehouse

Here is another look back a dozen years to a simple favorite and the only time I shot a train working here on the two stub ended warehouse tracks accessed via a diamond over the Roundhouse Lead that is right beneath me under the bridge.

This view looks down from the sidewalk of the C Street Bridge as an ARR yard job with GP38-2 2005 in the 1980s Alaska bold scheme switches out cars at the warehouse. The building on the left houses the ARR's stores department and they still regularly ship and receive company material by rail. Track components (spikes, anchors, etc.) come up by barge in foreign line boxcars while various other company material is shuttled around the system on flats, gondolas, or in boxcars. Beyond the train can be seen the bustling port of Anchorage and then the blue waters of cook inlet. On the horizon is the 4396 foot peak of Mt. Susitna, known locally as the "Sleeping Lady" for the mountain's resemblance to a woman in repose on her back. To the right is the abandoned warehouse, which is one of the oldest structures in the Anchorage yard complex and whose fate is uncertain, though I do believe a dozen years later it still stands.

Anchorage, Alaska
Saturday May 23, 2009

Photo courtesy of Dave Blazejewski