August 2, 1970

Dear Mr. Gehrke:

Returned about a month ago from my trip to Alaska and western Canada, and must say it is one of the best I have ever taken. I saw some fantastic scenery and experienced a great deal of interesting railroad operations. The 49th state is the greatest, and well worth inclusion in any traveler’s itinerary. For all the traveling I have done I saw sights there the likes of which I have never seen before. It is the last great wilderness, still virtually unspoiled, and unlike the U.S. West the frontier spirit is still genuine and you can feel it all around. Herewith the details, and I must warn you now that this account will be rather lengthy as this will be the official record and excerpts will probably be used in the Wilm. Chapter newsletter.

All trails west begin at Paoli, and so it was that I arrived at the depot there the evening of Friday June 19 with a pocket bulging with tickets including one for a roomette on the westbound Broadway Limited. The consist this night included one of the ex-D&RGW lounge cars so I finally was able to get inside one of them. They must have been very fine cars a few years ago but now seem to be quite shopworn. All the Broadway cars have numerous pages of train-off petitions taped to the walls "in a conspicuous Place" which not only does not enhance appearance but helps to cast a pall of gloom over the train's atmosphere. The pictures have been removed from the walls of the Harbor Cove, and the nameplates are missing from the doors. I sometimes wish Pennsy had kept the name "General" and let the Broadway pass into history with the train it represented. I hate to see the famous name applied to a train with worn out upholstery, rust around the windows, dirt on the walls etc. In defense of the PC it must be said that they make a valiant effort to maintain fine service but the efforts seem so futile like a general putting on his finest uniform to go to the surrender table.
Of course the train still runs, the economic facts of life notwithstanding, and as usual I found my ride enjoyable. Although dining car prices are up again, I found the food to be quite good, in fact better than my last trip. The service is very good, both in the diner and the sleepers. The steward was much pleased that I took a photo of the interior of his diner. Patronage was heavy both in the sleepers and coaches. In fact Ft. Wayne passengers had to ride in the D&RGW lounges for lack of seats. To my surprise I found PC has purchased some ex-Union Pacific 44-seat Pullman-Standard coaches built in 1950 (which appear new when compared to PC equipped of the same vintage), which have been repainted solid green and renumbered in the 3000 series. Their former numbers are visible under the paint at the top of the inside end doors. They look real nice, and I'm sure they will be welcomed by coach passengers who haven't had the benefit of overnight coaches for several years since the P-85s were scrapped. We were 35 minutes late getting into Chicago, the cause of which I could not determine except that we just seemed to lose time. The stop in Harrisburg lasted about 20 minutes.

I spent my time in Chicago shooting Milwaukee trains from the N. Canal St. crossing and looking around IC8s Central Station, and then beat a hasty path to Union Station when precipitation threatened. Union station is pretty much a mess with all the construction and demolition of the concourse, but not quite as bad as Penn Station in New York was.

If the passenger train were supposed to be dead you would never know it by standing in Union Station on the platform where the combined Empire Builder/North Coast Limited/ Afternoon Zephyr was loading on June 20, 1970. What a mob! There wasn't a luggage cart to be found anywhere. The line at the check-in desk was so long that I didn't see how I could possibly check in, and get to my roomette by departure time. The train was made up with the North Coast Limited on the rear, which meant that I had to flight my way through passengers and well-wishers seeing -them off, plus all sorts of baggage to get to my Pullman in the Empire Builder. Once I settled, I explored the consist. I ran into a friend of mine from the NRHS from Washington D.C. quite by chance who was going west on the North Coast Ltd. He works for DOT and on learning of my destination gave me the names of some people to contact on the Alaska Railroad, which proved quite valuable. Two special Pullmans bearing private tour parties were on the rear of both the Builder and the North Coast. There were several large groups of high school age kids on both trains either going to on-line points or returning from the big city. Such heavy patronage taxed the dining facilities, but the groups were fed in single blocks so that the diner wasn't too crowded when we regular passengers went in.

We rolled out of Union Station pretty much on time but soon the schedule began to slip as we had to make a couple of stops at each station due to the extreme length (23 cars) of the train. By this time it was pouring rain and the ride across the Illinois plains and up along the Mississippi was pretty dreary. I've been that route before, so spent the afternoon catching up on sleep when I wasn't indulging myself in the diner. The dome cars were pretty crowded as the first-time riders wanted to take in the novelty of riding under glass, and it is a pretty ride up the Mississippi. That's one of the advantages the Builder has over the North Coast: there are plenty of dome seats with the Great Dome and coach domes. The North Coast has only the cocktails in the sky dome and a sleeper dome plus a couple of coach domes. As you surely know by now Burlington, Northern Pacific and Great Northern were merged in March so there is only one operator of the trains to the Northwest, but so far anyway operations on the two trains with respect to accommodations, service, etc. are the same as they were before the merger. I suppose in time this will change, probably being something like present SCL service relates to former ACL and SAL service. One rumor I heard was that all passenger trains might be rerouted over the shorter GN route.

The sun came out again as we neared St. Paul, and we backed into the station there about an hour late where the train was attacked from the rear by SPUD's red, white and blue 44-tonner and from the front by a Burlington Northern (ex-GN) switcher. The train separates into three parts in St. Paul. The 4 CB&Q E units and the baggage car were cut away and a CB&Q E9 backed onto the two coaches, which constitute the Afternoon Zephyr at the very front of the train, and took off with these two coaches to cover the 10 miles to Minneapolis as a separate train. The North Coast Limited at the rear of the train was switched to an adjacent track where the rest of its cars were waiting, and it took off as a separate train. An RPO, 3 coaches, a baggage-Dorm and a Pullman were added to the cars that remained, and that became the Empire Builder west of St. Paul. Two CB&Q E8A units spliced by a GN F7B unit were the motive power, and the only obvious sign of the Burlington Northern merger, as E units seldom if ever pulled the Builder. During the night we recovered all lost time, and were back on the advertised leaving Minot the next morning.
On the whole the Empire Builder was superb with a capital S. The excellent quality of the dining car food, was complemented by the professionalism of the waiters. Those Great Domes are great domes; plenty of seating capacity for first class passengers although there wasn't an empty seat as we started into the mountains at Glacier Park. Coach passengers are provided with adequate dome capacity of their own. The Builder now moves into the No. 2 spot in my Favorite Trains list recently vacated by the CZ.

The trip west was relatively uneventful. It was brutally hot in the mountains, although the air-conditioning was working. At Havre, Montana the E units came off and a GN SDP-40 and two F units went on. At Whitefish we dropped the two UP 11-DBR Pullmans, which were carrying a tour to Yellowstone. The GN route thru the mountains is scenically superior to NP's and the tracks twist and turn around rocky ledges, through valleys, into tunnels and through many snow sheds (more than SP has now). Although it was very early when we passed through Cascade tunnel. I was fortunate enough to be jolted awake as we entered the famous bore. The scenery in the Cascades west of Spokane is really spectacular, but early risers can see it on the longest days on the westbound run. The eastbound train passes through in the late afternoon, but on it you miss the scenery east of Spokane through Glacier Park. The GN enters Seattle through Everett on the north, and skirts the shores of Puget Sound for several miles before arriving in town. Very pretty ride with several glimpses of Mt. Rainier. Arrival time was 7:45AM and the brakes applied in the station at exactly 7:45 as the second hand stood straight up. I got some pix of the North Coast arriving (also on time) and shot some cars in the coach yard.

My itinerary beyond Seattle was to jet to Anchorage for a couple of days, stay, ride the Alaska Railroad north to Fairbanks, then fly to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, where I would take the White Pass & Yukon to Skagway. At Skagway I was to board one of the Alaska Ferry liners and sail to Prince Rupert, B.C. where I would board the Canadian to Jasper, and then Super Continental to Toronto. And so it was that I boarded a bus at the Olympic Hotel for the short ride to the Seattle-Tacoma airport (which is all torn up in a massive rebuilding program), where I had a reservation on a Northwest Orient Boeing 720 Jet. On boarding I discovered that Penn Central does not have a monopoly on non-functioning air conditioning. The plane was at 100% occupancy, most of my fellow passengers being servicemen and their families, with a number of government civilian employees a few businessmen and a handful of tourists traveling on their own. We took off on time with the flight plan taking us up the west coast of British Columbia to the Gulf of Alaska where we flew over water into Anchorage. A pretty flight, but the cloudless sky at Seattle soon turned into heavy overcast as we got into the heavy rainfall areas farther north. Then too at 30,000 feet one can't see a whole lot anyway. It was a smooth flight anyway, the meal was edible, and the bubbly flowed freely. After being aloft for three hours the plane began to descend, around Valdez and here one catches the first glimpses of the magnificent mountain scenery along the Alaskan southern coastline. We touched down at the sprawling modern, fully carpeted international airport in Anchorage, and I set foot for the first time on the 49th state, which was also the 49th state I have been in. Anchorage sees a great deal of air traffic through its airport, for a look at the globe will show that the shortest route from the U.S. to the far east runs right over Alaska's largest city. Most planes en route to Asia make service stops there and I saw a couple of military charter flights loaded with Vietnam servicemen, plus a Japan Air Lines plane with a load of Expo tourists. This not to mention the considerable local air traffic in and out as Alaska is basically a land without highways and nearly all intercity intrastate travel is by air.

One's first impression of Anchorage as you bounce along in the airport limousine is that this is certainly not one of the country's most beautiful cities. Most of the main streets are paved, but they are quite rough and dusty. The city's growth seems to be completely without order as houses, stores, etc. seem to spring up all over. Of course the city has grown enormously just in the recent decade and has a population now of about 100,000 in the metropolitan area, over a third of the state's total population. With much of the city damaged or destroyed in the 1964 earthquake and requiring reconstruction, and the great population expansion it is probably not surprising that so many of the buildings appear to be hurriedly constructed. At first glance, the town appears to be built out of war surplus and resembles the area you might expect to find around any large military bases.

The military of course plays the major role in the state's economy. Just outside Anchorage is the sprawling Elmendorf AFB, and both the Army and Air Force have large installations throughout the state and provide employment for a large segment of the state's population, both civilian and military. The Alaska Railroad is the largest non-military employer in the state, and it of course is government-owned and heavily dependent on military traffic. Without the presence of Uncle Sam (and the pressures of the cold war) it is probably that the state would still be a largely uninhabited territory with just a few pioneering souls. Most of Alaska's growth has taken place from WW II on when the strategic importance of the state was discovered. Alaska was a major link in the flow of war supplies to Russia and it was during this time that the Alcan Highway was built. With VJ day at hand and our ally turned adversary the military significance of Alaska remained, and the role of the military is only now beginning to be eclipsed by the discovery of oil as the major component of the state's economy.

So far the discovery of oil has only resulted in a host of new problems for the state, the least pressing of which is the debate on where to spend the money realized from the sale of oil rights. Oil companies are moving in, building offices and taking drilling equipment to the North Slope oil fields, but the oil remains in the ground with no way to get it out and to market. The proposal, which currently holds favor, is construction of the Trans Alaskan Pipeline System (TAPS), which will entail laying 710 miles of 4.811 pipe from Valdez on the southern coast to Prudhoe Bay. Actual construction has been stymied by the sudden concern by everybody for protecting the environment. Pipe is being stockpiled at Valdez and is piling up on the piers in Seattle where it. is loaded on barges for the trip north, bit so far the only use found for the pipe is to put a few sections on display throughout the state as a public relations effort. The promise of high-paying oilfield jobs has lured many job seekers to the State, and with no drilling being done, unemployment has become critical. The state even has an information booth at the Seattle airport to warn people not to come north unless they had the money for a return ticket since the prospects of finding a job were rather dim. It was my observation however that there seemed to be plenty of help-wanted ads and anyone who really wanted a job could probably find one, at least during the summer when the tourists come.

Next to the military tourism is the biggest thing going for the state. They come from all over, but most appear to be from West Coast cities. Most seem to come in organized tours, and there are an awful lot of tours available. A lot of people from the West coast drive, which I think is a big mistake. Anchorage has a very large number of motels and they are usually filled up in the summer in spite of minimum rates of about $22 in the better places. Alaska has a reputation for high prices, which is largely deserved, but I found a little shopping around could turn up excellent local restaurants with reasonably priced food. Food prices ware comparable to those on the Empire Builder I would say. Seafood was the best bet for quality, since that is about the only thing that is processed locally. The Salmon king crab, halibut, etc. were excellent, but the beef and poultry left a great deal to be desired. Practically every out of state car you could see was either a camper or had a camper trailer, for is a very popular way to travel, and, there are a number of Rood campground quite expensive though, particularly when you have to get on a boat or portage by train. A number of campers I encountered en route complained bitterly about the high cost of food at supermarkets, and some fellow from Seattle was telling me it cost him $2000 to take his wide and 2 kids on a camping trip to Haines and Skagway and back. My entire trip cost only a fraction of that, and I traveled in relative comfort.

Alaskans are a friendly lot, proud of their state, and fiercely independent. The TAPS controversy has become a pretty big political issue. Most Alaskans seem to want it built, feeling that it will be a shot in the arm to the ailing economy. To them the concern for ecology is only meddling by "outsiders" and is resented. However there are also a number of people who are concerned about the states environment, particularly with how the pipeline will affect the untracked wilderness and the people who live there. Before the pipeline is built, a permanent road will also have to be built to the oil slope, an area that is now virtually inaccessible by overland means of transportation. A road has already been cut through from Fairbanks to Pt. Barrow and is called the Walter Hickel highway, but it is passable only in the winter when the tundra is frozen solid, and the extreme cold makes the going at that time of year difficult. Most supplies are now flown into Barrow, but a road must be built before there can be much expansion of drilling on the North Slope. The area through which the road will pass is inhabited by Eskimos who still make a primitive existence much as they always have. It is feared that the highway will bring the hunters and scavengers (GI's seem to receive the most blame for these activities) who will kill off the Eskimos' food supplies and leave the people helpless, not to mention bringing the white man's evil ways to the Eskimo societies, just as the American Indian was ravished in the last century. These fears are justified in the lot of the Eskimo in populated areas, where he has assumed a role all too similar to that of the Indian in the southwestern U.S. You'll find him lounging around the public square disheveled and unemployed or staggering into a sleazy bar. It is unfortunate that Alaskans seem to have little regard for the natural wonders of their great land; it seems that they only want to "take" from the land the gold, the furs, the coal, the oil-and give little or nothing back. Maybe in this case it would be a good thing to see a little meddling by outsiders, for otherwise I fear that left to the devices of the Alaskan citizens alone this last great wilderness will be lost.

Manufacturing seems to be virtually non-existent. This is understandable for the only market for manufactured products would be in the immediate local area of the plant due to the lack of distribution facilities. The state has only two principal highways: the Alcan (now known as the Alaska Highway) with branches to Anchorage and Fairbanks, and the Seward Highway which runs south from Anchorage to Seward on the Kenai peninsula. There is no direct highway link between the two largest cities in. the state although a highway is now being blasted through the mountains between Anchorage and Fairbanks, which should open in a year or two. It is impossible to drive your car over land to Juneau, the state capital, or to the larger towns on the southeastern coast, Ketchikan, Sitka, Wrangell or Skagway. Alaskans are proud of saying they moved from the dog-sled era directly into the air age, passing over the auto age. The role of the Alaska Railroad in the state’s development seems to be overlooked, but it has probably played a much bigger role than the airplane as evidenced by the fact that most of the population lives in the area through which the railroad runs. Unless transportation can be improved, the main business of Alaska will be exporting its natural resources, which in the end will prove to be a self-defeating act. Nearly all of the freight which passes through Alaska harbors is one way, virtually nothing going back which complicates the problems of any transportation company and adds greatly to the cost of delivering the goods.

Alaska has only two bus lines that I am aware of, in Ketchikan there is fairly frequent service by a bus along the main street, and Fairbanks offers the Golden Nugget Transit Co., which runs a single bus from downtown to Ft. Jonathan Wainwright. The only intercity service runs between Whitehorse and Fairbanks in the summer. Anchorage has no public transportation at all except taxis, and the city is so sprawling that the services of Hertz are required to get around.

Anchorage is built on a high bluff overlooking, Knik Arm of Cook Inlet where tides rise from 30-33 feet second only to the Bay of Fundy. In the 1964 earthquake large chunks of the bluff slid into the inlet carrying many homes into the water. The city has a harbor, which is ice-free for all but 4 months each year and is served regularly by Sea-Land container ships. The city took its name from the use for which it was originally intended, as a coaling station for naval vessels. When construction started on the Alaska Railroad, Anchorage became the main construction base, and from there it grew to be the largest city in the state serving primarily as a railroad center. Until the coming of Sea-Land, harbor activities had become insignificant with most shipping being done at the ice-free port of Seward. The north end of town is separated from the center city area by Ship Creek. The Alaska Railroad yards and shops are located on the north bank and the 3-story station and main office building is located on the south bank about two blocks from the main downtown street. The station building fared well in the earthquake, but it is at the foot of a hill and several square blocks that had been built on the hill were completely devastated and were never rebuilt. Today the area is a city park and a parking lot. The streets are broad and traffic is heavy but not congested. It seemed that most people drove like maniacs. Construction is going on all over, for the city is quite short on housing. Homes are expensive, but don't really look it. The city is acquiring a skyline, with the Anchorage Westward Hotel and a government office building dominating it on opposite ends of town, but there are also some other multistory motels and office buildings including the new Union Oil building. The city's best homes are located around the edge of the bluff overlooking the Inlet. Most of the homes away from this area are pretty run down, either cinder block, frame or Quonset construction. At the west end of town is located Earthquake Park, which is an area of peat bogs grotesquely twisted by the Good Friday earthquake in 1964 and left just as it was as a monument to the destruction. The east side of the city is dominated by a range of rugged snow-capped mountains. Not much else can be said about the city. My seat mate on the plane told me in Fairbanks it was the "real" Alaska, but Anchorage was just a big town, and that is about right.

Alaskans refer to the rest of the U.S. as the "lower 48", "outside" or some even call it "the States" which is a bit surprising. One thing they resent about outsiders is ignorance, and there seems to- be a lot of ignorance about the climate particularly. I sent a postcard home and with tongue-in-cheek told about sightseeing on a dog sled. I was really surprised to find how many people took it seriously. Anchorageites don't live in igloos, and it isn't -50 degrees on the 4th of July, reads the first paragraph of a guidebook I encountered. The climate in Anchorage is actually rather mild, with winter temperatures running on the average 10-20 degrees, and summer temps in the 50s and 60s, making the summertime extremely pleasant. There is a lot of moisture and it is frequently cloudy or rainy or snowing in the winter. The farther inland you go the more the temperature varies, and the less precipitation there is. Fairbanks, for example, can have -54 degrees in the winter, and temperatures in the 90’s in the summer. At Pt. Barrow on the North Slope the temperature can really get down, but snowfall is only a couple of inches per year. Were Barrow in a more temperate zone, it would lie on the edge of a vast desert. The thing that is so hard to get used to is that on the longest days of the year (when I was there) it never gets dark. In Anchorage the sun sets at 10:42PM and rises at 3:20AM, but in between it is light enough to drive without headlights. In Fairbanks the sun goes down just after midnight and comes up a little before 1 AM and there the sunlight can be seen all night. It is difficult to sleep, and hard to know when to go to bed. A lot of people tend to wear themselves out working in the yards until the late hours. The sun loses most of its light around 6 or 7 PM just as it does here, and then goes into a state of suspended twilight for hours. It always looks about ready to set but an hour later still locks the same. The farther north you get though, the more the sun shines so that at Barrow where there is continuous sunshine for 82 days the sun is about as bright in the wee small hours as it is in the afternoon. In the winter of course the reverse is true, and Alaskans don't see much of old sol then. One thing I was very much aware of and that is that I was in a place far different than any place I had ever been before.

The Alaska Railroad mainline from Seward enters Anchorage from the south, passes by the airport skirts Knik Arm until it comes to Ship Creek where it turns inland, passes the passenger station, crosses the creek and heads northward towards Fairbanks. The station is a rather large building without any sheltered platforms which also serves as the railroad's general offices. An 0-4-0T is mounted on a pedestal in front of the building, and a large parking lot is adjacent. My friend from Washington D.C. that I had met on the North Coast Ltd. had told me that the general manager of the ARR was a member of the Alaska-Yukon Chapter NRHS, and suggested I make my presence known. The GM was in Washington D.C. that day, so I talked to his assistant. They really rolled out the red carpet, and I was treated to a complete tour of the railroad facilities of Anchorage.

A state with only two railroads is not likely to attract too much attention from railfans particularly when there is no steam involved and you have to go many miles to get there. Among non-railfans people do not normally associate the 49th state with railroading. Prior to June, I had always thought of the Alaska R.R. as a hopelessly uneconomic government bureaucracy operated by Uncle Sam because he had to provide some service through a sparsely populated area that no private operator would touch. That may have been true at one time, but no more. Contrary to the way most Government agencies are administered, the Alaska Railroad is run like a profit-making business (I can't say it's run like a railroad; most U.S. roads could learn a thing or two from the ARR) and is a vigorous competitor for freight traffic. ARR employees are proud of the fact that their railroad is owned by Uncle Sam and have confidence it the competence of management, a fact which keeps morale high. The recent news of the Penn Central bankruptcy only reinforced their conviction that public ownership was best for the ARR. Of course the ARR has been quite fortunate in having such a dedicated staff, and I believe most of them realize it. A government–owned Penn Central would be an even bigger disaster than a bankrupt PC. The pioneer spirit of self-reliance prevails on the ARR and for the railfan despondent over the state of the industry a visit to the United State's biggest state will be very enlightening.

The building of the Alaska Railroad was first proposed by William Howard Taft, and construction was authorized by Congress in 1914. The Alaska Gold Rush was past its peak, but commercial gold mining was being conducted, and the Rush had focused attention on the importance of Seward's icebox, so it was felt that some kind of means of transportation was needed to tap the territory's great wealth. Seward, on the Kenai peninsula, was an ice-free port year round and had a magnificent natural harbor, so it was decided to build the rail line from there to Fairbanks where it would meet river boats on the Yukon River to provide access to most of interior Alaska and the Yukon territory. This was not the first rail venture for Alaska, for the White Pass & Yukon was completed in 1902, and a lengthy 195-mile copper hauling railroad, the standard gauge Copper River & Northwestern, ran out of Cordova. Another railroad, the Alaska Central, started building north from Seward, in 1903, and laid 50 miles of track before going bankrupt. The Act of March 12, 1914, which authorized construction of the Alaska Railroad, authorized the President to select the route, and Woodrow Wilson chose the Alaska Central route over the CR&NW as the nucleus of the Alaska Railroad. Had he chosen the latter route, Anchorage would not have become the state's largest city. The CR&NW continued to run until 1938 when the copper played out, and equipment was sold to the Alaska Railroad and the roadbed was used to construct a highway. The Alaska Central right of way was purchased, and rebuilding it along with laying new track began immediately. Another construction camp was started at what is now Anchorage for it also provided access to ocean routes. On July 15, 1923, President Warren G. Harding drove t he golden spike at Nenana, south of Fairbanks, on a trip to Alaska from which he was never to return, and the Alaska Railroad was in business.

Business, however, never lived up to the expectations of the promoters, and the line lost money every year. Losses had to be covered by appropriations from Congress, and many congressmen were so unhappy that proposals were rampant to abandon the whole operation after running only, a few years. The reason for the heavy losses is just as valid today as it was then; the area is rich in natural resources, but the high transportation costs of shipping to the mainland United States priced, Alaska products out of the only market they had. It was much cheaper to cut timber in Washington or British Columbia than it was to bring it from Alaska. There is probably more coal in Alaska than there is oil. In fact, you can see coal veins several feet think in the mountains from the train windows. However, it is not a high-grade coal and the transportation costs of getting it to market are too high to compete with coal from the mainland U.S. Today, except for the coal used in Alaska generating plants, most coal remains in the ground and the timber remains uncut for want of a ready market. This situation will probably change in the very near future, for the Japanese are already buying Alaska timber and are showing interest in Alaska coal, since the distance from Alaska to Japan is relatively short, or at least shorter than from any other point in North America.

World War II was the turning point for the Alaska Railroad. The Japanese had landed forces in the Aleutian islands, and it was suddenly realized that the only link between Alaska and the continental United States was the sea route, which was vulnerable to submarine attack. Had the Japs secured a really strong foothold in Alaska it would have not only cut off the flow of aircraft and other war supplies to Russia but would also provide a base for attack on the United States. It was decided to build an all weather overland highway from Dawson Creek, B.C. to Fairbanks to provide Alaska with a land link to the rest of the United States, and build it in a hurry. Construction bases were established at Dawson Creek at the end of the Northern Alberta Railroad and at Whitehorse, Y.T. at the head of the White Pass route, and also at Fairbanks where the Alaska Railroad could bring in supplies from Seward. The Alaska Railroad was better able to handle the flow of construction supplies than was the White Pass, but at the same time numerous military bases were also established throughout the Railbelt which the Alaska Railroad had to serve. During the War, the Army, fearing the vulnerability of the single port at Seward, constructed a second port at Whittier and built a large base there for the handling of military cargo including a car ferry slip. The closest point on the Alaska Railroad was Portage, 12 1/2 miles away, but to reach it required going through two huge mountains of the Chugach Range. Accordingly, two tunnels of 4,000 and 14,000 feet length respectively were dug, and the Whittier Branch was constructed. To this day, this is the only access to Whittier by land, and the Alaska Railroad accommodates travelers by running the portage train between the Seward Highway at Portage and Whittier. It was not possible to operate steam engines in the tunnels, and so the ARR acquired its first diesels, a pair of Alco RS-1s, which are still in service.

Even though Uncle Sam transferred the money from one pocket to another, the Alaska Railroad made a tidy profit during the war years by hauling war supplies. More importantly the necessity of having the road was indisputably established, and cries for its abandonment were no longer heard. The hot war became a cold war and Alaska was the first line of defense, with the Alaska Railroad right in front on the battle lines. However the unceasing crush of traffic during the war years had practically worn out the road's physical plant, and again Congress came to the aid of the road with appropriations to rebuild the roadway. The acquisition of equipment was an easy matter, for as a government agency the road could acquire government surplus equipment for only the cost of moving it to the site. The road acquired a great deal of surplus equipment, much of' which I was unable to use. Some War Dept. 2-8-0s came to the property, but the greatest godsends were a batch of Alco RS-1s that had been built for the Army, for use in Iran and the thousands of troop sleepers and kitchen cars which were built during the war but made surplus by VJ day. As one drives in from the airport the first Alaska Railroad equipment one sees are four former troop Pullmans on display bearing an exhibit near the airport. Although despised by all of its occupants, the troop sleeper is probably the most fitting memorial to the Alaska Railroad one could find. They were adaptable to a multitude of uses, most of them being converted to boxcars, but many others found their way to service as camp cars, flangers, steam generating cars, electric generating cars, and refrigerating cars. Still others were cut down to flat cars, and car bodies were used as storage sheds. Some were converted to passenger coaches, and a sizable number remained as troop sleepers and were held for military movements and emergency standby service in the event a mass evacuation was required. The troop sleeper spirit of ingenuity, i.e. making the best of whatever is at hand, prevails on the ARR to this day and is a fitting testimonial to the ability of Alaska Railroad management to give the United States taxpayer the most for his money. A number of Army hospital cars were also acquired and converted to coaches and baggage cars.

After the rebuilding program the Alaska Railroad began to conduct itself like a business instead of a government agency. The first order of business was to bring efficiency to the operation. A great deal of surplus acquired in the rebuilding program was gathering rust and no possible use could be thought of for it, and no one could recall why it was accumulated in the first place. All useless surpluses were disposed of and the shop area cleaned up. The last steamers were retired and F7s were bought to replace them. Most freight the road hauled was unloaded from freighters at Seward and loaded into boxcars by longshore gangs. Containers were introduced in this service which could be loaded on the ship in Seattle and unloaded directly onto a flat car for delivery with no intermediate handling, cutting costs greatly. A new yard was constructed at Fairbanks and an ultramodern diesel shop was built at Anchorage. Gradually the improvements began to pay dividends, and the Alaska Railroad ceased to be a drain on the treasury and was able to cover its expenses by revenues with a surplus. The only appropriations Congress has made to the road in recent years were to repair the damage wrought by the 1964 earthquake. All capital improvements the road makes now are financed from the surplus.

The Alaska Railroad is an aggressive competitor for freight business. Competition comes from the big semi trailers operated by Weaver Brothers. and other trucking companies over the Seward Highway from Seward to Anchorage, and also from Sea-Land Service, whose vessels call directly at Anchorage. Although the ARR gained a lot of business hauling Sea-Land containers inland, it also lost a lot of business which would have formerly moved over its lines from Seward, to Anchorage. The truckers call foul for they feel that they are private tax-paying enterprises competing with the US. Government which does not have to pay taxes or provide for a return on investment thus enabling the road to have low rates. By comparison with United States roads, however the rates are quite high. Another source of competition is the pipeline the Army has built to supply its bases inland with fuel delivered by sea. Unlike many "outside" roads, the Alaska Railroad does not stand by and bemoan the fact that the truckers are gobbling up the most lucrative business. Since most Alaska cargo has to cross a pier twice to go from the continental United States to the 49th State, it was felt that this was the most significant area for service improvement. As mentioned earlier, containerization was utilized to cut down port handling, the containers being 24', all that could be accommodated in the hold of Alaska Steamship's old Liberty ships. The ARR owned the containers itself, and was a virtual pioneer in this advanced method of shipping which ought to be utilized extensively by all United States railroads. Not long ago the Army abandoned its base at Whittier, and the Alaska railroad took over, and is now in the process of improving the yard there. The Army had built a car ferry slip at Whittier, and in a very short time the Alaska Railroad was interchanging loaded freight cars with mainline railroads through either Prince Rupert arid Canadian National's Aquatrain or Seattle via Hydrotrain car floats. Now many foreign line cars can be seen on Alaska rails. The advent of freight car interchange wiped out the ARR's own container service, which put the road in the unusual position of moving contrary to the industry in general on the issue of containerization. However, the roads container flats didn't gather much rust, for they were pressed into service to move Sea-Land containers from Anchorage to Fairbanks. Today most ARR freight either moves in freight cars owned by the originating foreign road or in Sea-Land containers. So little break-bulk cargo moves over the port at Seward that there was some question of whether the Seward line should be rebuilt after the 1964 quake. It was however, and as a port Seward is on the come-back trail. The only business left to the truckers is the break bulk cargo at Seward and performing drayage services for Sea-Land containers at both Anchorage and Fairbanks. The trucks can't get the lucrative business of hauling Sea-Land containers between Anchorage and Fairbanks due to the lack of a road, but the road is now being built. Of course the biggest problem facing the Alaska Railroad is the fact that 90% of the hauls are one way. Most Sea-Land containers have to be returned empty, and so do most foreign freighters. This means that rates have to be high enough to cover the expenses of a round trip for the car although the cargo goes only one way. President Nixon has proposed selling the ARR, but unless something can be done to balance the traffic flow it is unlikely that any private buyer could be found.

A tour through the shops at Anchorage tells much about the Alaska Railroad. The first thing you notice is the cleanliness of the facility when you stop in the master mechanics office to pick up your safety glasses. My guide had been with the ARR for over 25 years and was quite proud of the railroad and optimistic about its future. The first place visited was the modern diesel shop which has several service bays. Inside the shops were several ARR F7s undergoing routine maintenance, and about half a dozen Denver & Rio Grande steam-generator equipped F7s which had just arrived and were being overhauled and pressed into service as fast as they could get ARR numbers. I was told that ARR desperately needs new motive power, and although it has some GP-30s and GP-35's, there is too much red tape to go through to finance the acquisition of brand new motive power. The D&RGW F7s had been made surplus by the demise of the California Zephyr, they were in good condition and presented a bargain too good to pass up. I was told that the Alaska Railroad had also completed all the arrangements to buy two complete California Zephyr consists (except for the standard sleepers, although the observations would be included) but since the CZ case is still ensnarled in the courts, the railroads are prohibited from disposing of any cars. The coming of the D&RGW units enabled the ARR to retire all of its Iranian RS-1s. There were still 8 of them on the property in operation, but the last had been withdrawn a week before my arrival, and all are now sitting behind the shops awaiting disposition. Some of them had been given all-welded cowls to convert them to cab units, in both A & B units, and the appearance of these units was very distinctive although the general outline resembled an F unit. This was done not in the interests of streamlining (although that was an added benefit) but to enable the diesels to work the snow trains. It seems snow would pile up on the running board of an RS-1 and trap the engineer in the cab. Most of the cowled units had been retired some time before, but an ABA team was kept in reserve to work the rotary fleets until it was retired by the D&RGW units. The Alaska Railroad is retiring the RS-1s because it feels with Alco cut of business maintenance will be increasingly difficult. Motive power in service consists of the F7s, some GP-9s which were formerly Army engines with switcher trucks, but which were rebuilt with Alco RS-1 trucks and given homemade chopped noses, the GP-30s and GP-35's, the two- original RS-1s (also rebuilt with chopped noses), and a handful of relatively new Alco yard switchers. In addition some Alco yard units are leased from the Army.

All of the buildings in the Anchorage shop complex were built new in the postwar reconstruction period, with the exception of a six-stall roundhouse which stands vacant near the diesel shop. Although it looks sturdy and a lot better than what you might find still in use on a lot of outside railroad, it is felt it represents a fire hazard and will soon be razed.

Next stop was a visit to the wheel shop which is the pride of the Alaska Railroad and which has been cited by Modern Railroads for its modernity. It was clean enough you could eat off the floor. ARR shop forces are quite skilled and must be capable of any repair job since there is no such thing as farming out work to another railroad shops. A car shop is also included in the shop area whose principle duty is to maintain freight equipment and repair cars involved in minor mishaps. At times however, the shops are called upon to do some extensive rebuilding work such as that done on the hospital cars to convert them to coaches. The shops are big enough so that at night the entire passenger train is stored, inside behind its locked doors and away from the frigid weather, a factor which doubtlessly contributes to the fine appearance of ARR passenger equipment. Just outside the shops are three heavyweight Pullman cars, a 12-1 and two 6compt-3DR cars bought from the Pullman Co. in the 1950's. One of the 6-3s is absolutely immaculate; it looks like it just rolled out of the Calumet erecting shop. The inside is just the same with everything spic and span. The ARR used to run an overnight train between Anchorage and Fairbanks in the wintertime, and the Pullmans were used on that train, but haven't been used since 1965. However, ARR employees fondly remember the Pullmans superior riding qualities. The road's last three heavyweight coaches were in another part of the yard about to be scrapped, and there was a string of troop sleepers and a couple of kitchen cars also in the scrap line. These were the troop sleepers being held for emergency use, but they are now being cut up. I went inside one and they are indeed pretty spartan. I can see now why they weren't too popular with WW II servicemen.

North of the shops is the freight yard which is pretty busy. The ARR has a number of modern freight cars including 86-foot piggyback flats and a dozen 50-foot mechanical reefers. There is also a container yard with a big straddle crane. Most of the containers handled there now are Sea- Land's. The 86-foot flats are used to carry containers, and they are augmented by a number of troop sleepers cut down into container flats. Container flats have electrical cables and plug-ins for refrigerated and/or heated vans used to transport perishables. Refrigeration units on the containers are electrically operated since propane tends to freeze up in the extreme cold, and Sea-Land's containers must be specially equipped for Alaska service. The power comes from one of ARR's fleet of homemade generating cars which house a diesel generator inside a former kitchen car. Containers are usually dispatched in the consist of passenger trains, or in separate trains if there are enough of them. The ARR also has rebuilt a kitchen car into a steam generator car for use on excessively lone passenger trains in the winter, and has rebuilt another car with two air compressors to maintain train line pressure in long freights when winter temperatures cause a lot of air to leak out around brittle air hose grommets.

The Alaska Railroad runs two passenger trains. The "premier" train is numbers 5-6 which runs between Anchorage and Fairbanks and is known officially as the "AuRoRa" (for the road's initials) and unofficially as the "moose gooser." It runs two days a week in the winter, and daily from May through September when the tourists come. The other train doesn't even rate a number much less a name. It runs south out of Anchorage to Portage in the morning and returns in the evening daily except Thursday on a schedule that varies according to the day. At Portage it makes three round trips between Portage and Whittier through the Whittier tunnels transferring autos from the Seward Highway to the Alaska State Ferry at Whittier where connections are made to Valdez and Cordova. The ARR's finest scenery lies along this route. Unfortunately there is no more passenger service between Portage and Seward. My ARR host suggested that instead of riding the train from Anchorage to Portage that I drive to Portage and board the train there for the ride to Whittier. Although I would have rather ridden the train, I didn't miss any scenery for the highway parallels the railroad and I didn't have to spend the entire day in Portage. The train to Portage consisted of a GP-9 pulling a blue and yellow combine with a caboose behind. All the way to Portage the tracks parallel the exceedingly beautiful Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet where mountains rise up directly from the shoreline on either side. The railroad and the highway are blasted into the side of the rocks for the entire 50-miles. Tides in Turnagain Arm vary greatly, and at low tide you could walk across at some places. This area subsided 8 1/2 feet in the 1964 earthquake, and the railroad and highway had to be completely rebuilt. The earthquake did most of its damage along the shoreline where Seward was destroyed by a tidal wave, and Valdez had to be completely relocated.

At one time there were a few buildings at Portage, but they were destroyed in the 1964 earthquake, and the only thing there now is a loading ramp. At Portage the train picked up a string of 86-foot piggyback flats with the combine at one end and the caboose at the other. The train performs a vital service here for it provides the only access to Whittier. There is a siding at Portage with a gauntlet track to bring the flats flush to the loading ramp. Cars, trucks and campers were already lined up and they drove onto the flats after paying the conductor $10 per vehicle for the 12 1/2 mile trip. Driving through Alaska is very expensive particularly in cases like this where you have to portage your auto or take the ferry. There is a parking lot at Portage for those who just want to ride to Whittier and the fare is $1 each direction. The combine is for the accommodation of foot passengers, so I paid my buck and got aboard. This is an incredible 12 1/2 miles of scenery in spite of the fact that a fourth of it is in the Whittier tunnels. Three large glaciers are passed en route, the largest of which is the Portage glacier, a popular tourist attraction. The tracks pass through a swampy valley containing a glacial stream where moose can frequently be seen. High snow covered mountain peaks rise from the valley floor, and sharp eyes can pick out Dall sheep high in the rocky crags. The shorter tunnel is the first one you pass through, and then you come right out and run smack into the side of the mountain as you enter the 14,000-ft bore. Rolling into daylight again at the end of the long tunnel, you find yourself at the port of Whittier, on Prince William Sound. The port is completely surrounded by barren, snowy peaks in a horseshoe fashion, and the only direction in which you can see is straight out to sea. Whittier was originally built as an Army base but has been abandoned and turned over to civilian use. Unfortunately no use can be found for the huge government buildings, the most impressive of which is a 10-story structure, and another rambling 4-story building. They now stand vacant and unused, but are of sturdy construction necessary to withstand the brutal winters. Were they closed to population centers they would make good apartment houses in housing-short Alaska, but nobody lives in Whittier except a handful of workmen who maintain the railroad and the ferry slips.

There is a tank farm at Whittier, a railroad station, motel, and engine house. On our arrival we found the Alaska State Ferry E.L. Bartlett in port, and most of the autos on the portage train drove off and boarded the ferry. The state runs an extensive ferry service on a not-too-frequent schedule to give access to the coastal towns which are otherwise inaccessible. The E.L. Bartlett is part of the southwestern system which serves Cordova, Valdez, Whittier, Seward, Kodiak and Homer. The Southeastern system serves Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan. Quite a few people pass through Whittier (that's why the motel is there) but all must ride the portage train. The car ferry slip is next to the Bartlett's slip, but there was no activity here the day I was there. A GP-9 is kept at Whittier to switch the car floats, and the ARR inherited a large yard from the Army which it is expanding. The train stayed there about 45 minutes while the engine ran around to the other end, and then we took off for the return trip to Portage. After returning to Portage, I drove over to the Portage Glacier for a closer look.

The following day I returned to the station and boarded ARR Train 6 for the ride up to Fairbanks. The train consisted of two F7 units, two baggage cars, two coaches for local passengers, a diner lounge, and three coaches for through passengers. All equipment is painted blue with yellow window bands. Coaches appear to be lightweight, but are actually riveted and ride on 6-wheel trucks. They are not air-conditioned (not really needed) and do not have axle generators or batteries deriving their power from diesel generators located in the baggage cars. This seems very intelligent to me, for it always seemed such a waste of money to have each car equipped with its own lighting plant, rather than have a central source of power. The cars are equipped with reclining seats and are comfortable and clean but a bit shopworn. It was interesting to contemplate that were it not for the legal action in the Midwest, I would be riding in the CZ equipment. Domes will be a real asset to this train, however the old hospital cars now in service have about the largest windows you can find.

Departure time was 9:00 AM, and we moved out slowly following the banks of Ship Creek passing a fish ladder where big king salmon were fighting their way upstream to spawn. The tracks enter the grounds of Elmendorf AFB and emerge farther north near the end of Knik Arm. There were no highways anywhere near the railroad except for the new Anchorage-Fairbanks highway which is still under construction. Alaskan railroaders remain optimistic about the future of passenger service in spite of the coming highway. The train carries more passengers each year, a trend they expect to continue, as tourism increases. Passengers are made to feel welcome. They are given souvenir packets containing timetables, route maps, and post cards. Trainmen take great pleasure in pointing out moose (meese?) along the way and don't mind answering questions. The train provides a very vital service for the people who live along the way for it is their only access to the outside world. It will stop at any point along the line where a passenger wants to get on or off regardless of whether there is a station there or not. A number of people have homesteads along the tracks and the train will stop right at their doorstep so they can get off. Probably when the highway is completed this local businesses will disappear.

Soon after we left I went into the diner for some breakfast The diner is operated by a civilian concessionaire, and except for a cook has an all-female staff. Like the rest of the passenger cars the diner is rebuilt from a hospital car and has the kitchen in the center with an 8 table dining area at one end of the car and a bar and lounge with an observation end at the other end. Furnishings in the dining section is pretty spartan with oilcloth tablecloths, stainless steel utensils, etc. but servings are plentiful and prices quite reasonable. The diner also sells magazines and color slides. The lounge end of the car has a low flat ceiling (in contrast to the round ceiling that follows the roof contour in the dining end and features a semi-circular bar adjacent to the kitchen staffed by a lady barkeeper. The chairs have plastic upholstery, and in the middle of the lounge there is a jukebox which blares forth with hillbilly music.

The first 100 miles or so of the trip is kind of monotonous and the train runs mostly through the woods. It passes through the fertile Matanuska Valley where there is a great deal of farming and coal mining and winds along the shores of the broad Susitna River. On a clear day there are a number of places where they say you can see Mt. McKinley, but clear days are not particularly common. This day was a combination of overcast, bright sun, and thunderstorms. We passed a few freights, mostly coal or work trains, some with ex-D&RGW F units. There are a lot of towns or rather names shown on the map and timetable but nearly all of them are railroad points and contain only a section house and a few Eskimo track workers if they are big enough. There are also a lot of places where there is nothing more than a station sign. At Curry there used to be a big railroad hotel in the old days, for trains were unable to make the Anchorage-Fairbanks trip in a day and had to tie up overnight.

Once out of the Susitna River canyon the rails begin to climb and some pretty spectacular views can be had. Large snow-capped mountains loom up outside the window on the east side, and to the west across the valley there is a snow-capped range which contains famous Mt. McKinley, highest point in North America. Fortunately the sun was out as we passed by, and although the top was surrounded by a few clouds you could see the mountain there. It's hard to miss, for the elevation is over 20,000 feet and the surrounding foothills attain an elevation of only 7,000 ft. or so. The range is barren and snow covered, devoid of any vegetation, and it is not hard to imagine expeditions getting stranded in there and search planes looking for them. At Hurricane the train slows to 5 mph, and rolls out onto the 384 feet steel arc bridge that spans Hurricane Gulch and crosses the Chulitna River, 206 feet below, one of the major attractions on the route. At a place called Colorado we passed southbound train which carried the road's office car Caribou Creek behind the coaches, a Trailways bus on a flatcar behind that, (a popular way for or tours to travel is to ride the train and, take the bus with them; it is also done on the White Pass), and some 50 foot mechanical reefers and container cars bringing up the rear with a caboose thrown on the end. Pushing on into the rugged terrain we passed another fairly permanent trackside settlement with what appeared to be a cluster of tents on a hill. The waitress explained those were Eskimo graves, and the ones with crosses on them had been converted by the missionaries. It Once out of the Susitna River canyon the rails begin to climb and some pretty spectacular views can be had). Large snow-capped mountains loom up outside the window on the east side and to the west across the valley. There is a snow-capped range which contains famous Mt. McKinley, highest point in North America. Fortunately the sun was out as we passed by, and although the top was surrounded by a few clouds you could see the mountain there. It’s hard to miss, for the elevation is over 20,000 feet and the surrounding foothills attain an elevation of only 7,000 feet or so. The range is barren and snow covered, devoid of any vegetation, and it is not hard to imagine expeditions getting stranded in there and search planes looking for them. At Hurricane the train slows to 5 mph, and rolls out onto the 384 feet steel arc bridge that spans Hurricane Gulch and crosses the Chulitna River, 296 feet below, one of the major attractions on the route. At a place called Colorado we passed southbound train 5 which carried the road car Caribou Creek behind the coaches, a Trailways bus on a flatcar behind that, (a popular way for tours to travel is to ride the train and take the bus with them; it is also done on the White Pass), and some 50 foot mechanical reefers and container cars bringing up the rear with a caboose thrown on the end. Pushing on into the rugged terrain we passed another fairly perm anent trackside settlement with what appeared to be a cluster of tents on a hill. The waitress explained those were Eskimo graves, and the ones with crosses on them had been converted by the missionaries. It was raining again as we came to a stop at McKinley Park station, where there was almost a complete change of passengers.

McKinley Park is the station where you transfer to the McKinley Park Hotel located in Mount McKinley National Park. The hotel was built by the railroad in its earlier days as a passenger promotion scheme, on the same order as Banff Springs and Lake Louise but on a lesser scale. It was a costly venture, and was given to the National Park Service in the postwar rebuilding program which in turn leases it now to a private operator. For years it was inaccessible except by rail, but now adventurous motorists can drive over a 161-mile highway to reach the park from the nearest main highway. Still however the railroad brings in the bulk of the passengers, and the train makes at least a 10 or 15 minute stop while the passengers transfer to buses and trucks take the luggage. Actually you can't even see Mt. McKinley from the hotel; a smaller but much closer peak blocks the view.

Underway again, the train slows to a crawl as it enters the Nenana River Canyon, probably the most spectacular scenery on the route. The tracks are carved into a niche on the sharp rock walls, while the turbulent river churns underneath. The tracks are not very far from the water for the canyon is not very deep. However the water is continually washing away the base of the cliffs causing the rocks to slide. Track in this area has to be rebuilt almost every year. Next stop is Healy, a big railroad division point and the site of extensive Government-owned strip mines. There is a railroad yard here loaded with hopper cars, many of which are former Erie cars, but augmented by a number of ex-L&N modern roller bearing equipped cars. There is so much coal in this area that you can actually see rich veins in the mountains. The customers are all local, either military installations or generating plants, although the railroad has looked long and hard for an export customer. So far only the Japs have expressed an interest, but if they decide to start buying coal both the railroad and the town will boom. Beyond Healy the mountains turn into pine-covered hills as we roll on towards Fairbanks. At Nenana the railroad skirts the Tanana River through the town which used to be an important port for river boats, and still sees some barge traffic and then doubles back on itself to round a horseshoe curve and cross the Tanana River on a high steel bridge which was the last link in the construction of the Alaska Railroad. It was on the north side of the bridge where Warren Harding drove the gold spike, and a sign has been mounted to mark the location. As it gets closer to Fairbanks, the train picks up speed, and runs about 50 mph for most of the rest of the way where the track is straight and the country comparatively flat. We pass some top-secret radar installations, go past the University of Alaska campus just outside of Fairbanks, pass the large ARR yards at Fairbanks (built big enough to handle the traffic from the proposed Alaska rail connection with the CN) and come to a stop at the modern (1959) Fairbanks terminal, the northernmost point in North America served by rail.

In physical appearance Fairbanks isn't much different than any other Western town. The Chena River runs through town, the railroad yards and industry being on the north side and the rest of the town on the south side. The main thoroughfare is dominated by stores and a string of bars. There is a movie theatre, a big J.C. Penney store, and supermarkets. The streets are fairly wide, but many of the residential streets are not paved. Many of the houses, churches, and the public library are built of round log construction. The town is a lot more concentrated than Anchorage, and it is possible to walk all around the downtown area and to and from the numerous high quality motels. It is awfully hard to get used to going to bed with the sun shining brightly, and I went around town at midnight taking some photos of the city by the light of the midnight sun. The brakeman on the train worried that it would be unbearably hot there. He said temperatures in the 80s were common, and it would get too hot to sleep and during his lay over he would walk the streets since there was no air conditioning to escape the heat. However there was a thunderstorm and that kept the temperature down. The ARR Fairbanks station is a very clean and pleasant place, with lots of glass and comfortable benches. The wall is adorned with a lot of color photos of ARR scenes, including some shots of "Moose Gooser '67" when the ARR borrowed a 2-8-2T from a Vancouver railfan group and ran it between the Anchorage station and airport pulling 4 troop sleepers-turned-coaches as part of the Alaska Centennial.

I was scheduled to fly out of Fairbanks to the next stop, Yukon Territory, on Wien Consolidated Airlines. WC is a former bush pilot operation that has grown into an all-Alaska carrier with routes all through the central and western parts of the state. They were fortunate to have had the Point Barrow route when oil was discovered there which has proved to be a bonanza. In addition to scheduled air service there, the airline has chartered a number of big 4-engine transports to the oil companies to fly in supplies. Driving to the airport from downtown you find that all the major oil operators have temporary offices at the airport with piles of supplies all around waiting to be flown to the north slope. A brand new airport is being built which is not yet finished and is pretty confusing with all the construction going on. Most of the service there is intrastate but Pan Am has a New York-Tokyo flight that also stops at Fairbanks. With all the oil money to spend, Wien Consolidated has really spruced up its operations buying twin-engine Boeing 737 jets for all its main routes and giving its stewardesses snappy new uniforms. The 737s have movable bulkheads and the seats are removable to allow more cargo space on the Barrow flights. The plane to Pt. Barrow took off right ahead of mine and about 30 people got on, many of them tourists, as WC offers a number of tours that take you inside the Arctic Circle. About 50 people got on the Whitehorse/Juneau flight with me, and there was plenty of room aboard as only a third of the seats were occupied. Many Alaskans I talked to seemed to regard Wien Consolidated with the same regard that megalopolitans seem to have for Penn Central, but I found the service quite good and the flight was only about 10 minutes late touching down at the Whitehorse airport. Flight time was 1 hour and 5 minutes.

The road from the Whitehorse airport to town takes you along a stretch of the ALCAN Highway, and must say I would never take my car over that road. It is unpaved and covered with gravel, and every vehicle that passes over it puts forth a huge dust cloud. An air-conditioned car is almost a must for no other reason than to keep the dust out. Windshields are cracked by stones kicked up by passing trucks, and cars should wear screens over their grilles to protect the headlights. Frankly I can't see why anybody in his right mind would want to drive to Alaska, especially when there are so many more pleasant (and less expensive) ways to get there, such as the route I followed.

Whitehorse is a sprawling, dusty frontier town with what seems to be an inordinate number of well- patronized drinking establishments. A large number of Indians and Eskimos make up the native population, and you can usually find them staggering toward their abodes in the perpetual twilight after a visit to the above mentioned establishments, and frequent disruptions of the domestic tranquility probably keep the Mounties busy. Whitehorse, being the only town of consequence between Dawson Creek and Fairbanks on the Alaska Highway also features a number of good hotels and restaurants to comfort the weary traveler. I had a room in the Edgewater, which overlooked the station, and main line of Whitehorse main industry, the White Pass & Yukon.

The White Pass is an incredible operation from any way you look at it. On the one hand the spirit of the 198 Klondike gold rush rattles on in the form of the road's ancient open-vestibule wooden parlor cars that carry 1970 sourdoughs over 110 miles of the most fantastic scenery you can imagine, over rails set just 3 feet apart. But don't be fooled by the 3 foot gauge: the White Pass is as modern as the totally integrated intermodal transportation system it operates, a system that is barely past the theory stage in the minds of transportation experts in the Lower 48. The White Pass is trains, trucks, ships, and a pipeline, and at one time was also an airline.

The White Pass was organized as a result of the Klondike gold rush, which started in 1896 with the discovery of gold in the Klondike Valley. Prospectors heading for the gold fields had to sail to Skagway, a city which in 3 months grew from one lone cabin to a tent and false-front-building metropolis of 15,000-20,000 people, where they had to set out on foot over the "trail of '98", a 45- mile hike over the 2400ft summit of the White Pass. Some chose the shorter but steeper Chilkoot Trail. The name Dead Horse Gulch suggests some of the hardships faced in the quest for the yellow metal. After crossing White Pass the miner found himself at the head of Lake Bennett where he built a raft and floated down the Yukon River to his destination. Better transportation was needed, both to get the miners in and the minerals out, and it was an English financier and a Canadian railway builder who came up with the idea of spiking steel rails into the rocky walls of the pass. Construction of the White Pass & Yukon began in the summer of 1898 and was completed in the summer of 1900 at a cost of $10,000. After taking a look at the right of way, it is hard to believe it was built in only two years, especially, since modern highway builders have never been able to get a roadway more than half a dozen miles out of Skagway. The worst part of construction was the first 20 miles where the railway climbed from 0 sea level to 2940 ft at the summit. Most of the time the tracks are carved into the mountainside but there are places where the tracks emerge from a tunnel in a sheer rock wall and immediately enter onto a trestle. Another gorge had to be spanned with a 215ft. high cantilever bridge, now known as the "steel bridge."

Just a few months after the WP&Y began operations the Gold Rush was over. Mining companies were able to bring in heavy machinery by rail and the sourdoughs moved on to greener pastures. The WP&Y prospered for a few years, very early exhibited the intermodal transportation concept it follows today by establishing steamboat service on the Yukon River to connect with its trains at Whitehorse, Y.T., the northern terminal of the 110-mile route. However by the time of the first World War gold mining had panned out, so to speak and hard times were at hand. However tough it may have been nobody was ready to call it quits, and the line creaked along through the depression and into the prewar nine years on determination and little else. Then the nation was at war again, and the decision to build the Alcan Highway and use Whitehorse with its rail supply route as a construction base forced the WP&Y onto center stage. The road, which had faced many years of famine, was unable to gorge itself at the feast. In the first nine months of 1942 the road moved more than twice its prewar tonnage, but had so little equipment it was unable to move any more. At this point Uncle Sam moved in and leased the road for the duration and sent the 770th Railway Operating Battalion of the U.S. Army in to take over train operations in company with WP&Y’s own personnel. More motive power was needed, and the Army brought in a varied assortment of narrow gauge power, ranging from seven ex-D&RGW 470-- series Mikados (the series that is now used on the Silverton train, but obsolete even then on the rest of D&RGW’s narrow gauge), two of Tweetsie's sisters, a few other assorted locos that could be scrounged up in the Colorado graveyards, and a group of brand new War Dept. 2-8-2s that had been built for service in Iran, but were never sent there when the Army decided to use Alco RS-1s instead. All told the Army brought in 26 engines to supplement WP&Y's 10. Cars came in from all over to, 258 of them. Today you can still see Rio Grande, East Broad Top and Sumpter Valley equipment kicking around. During the War the Army built a 4-inch pipeline alongside the tracks. The Army didn't have an easy time of it; problems faced included one of the worst winters ever and a derailment on the steel bridge, but the supplies got through. On one day in 1943 there were 38 train movements over the line.
The end of the war found the White Pass in a slightly different position from that of the Alaska Railroad. The ARR managed to pile up some impressive profits during the war, but the war effort practically devastated the property. The WP&Y, which was operated by and for the military didn't fare out as well financially but did gain some benefits in improved property and equipment. For one thing it gained a four-inch pipeline that the Army built to move fuel oil inland. It also gained a brace of practically new War Dept. 2-8-2 to augment its own fleet of mikes. Although postwar traffic was greater than what it was in the prewar years, it wasn't enough to pay for a line relocation or standard gauging the rails. Inflation was catching up, and the construction of the Alcan Highway introduced truck competition to the heretofore-captive market. Unlike the D&RGW the WP&Y could not simply write off the narrow gauge and fall back on a standard gauge empire. The 36-inch gauge rails were all they had and management was not about to throw in the sponge. A modernization program was begun to reduce costs and overcome the handicap of the slim gauge.

The WP&Y needed new motive power. The primary locos on the roster were four 2-8-2s in the 70 series built between 1938 and 1947. The road wanted some more but was unable to get them because no builders were constructing steam engines. (The Army 2-8-2s were too big and slippery and not a tremendous success on the torturous roadbed) The road had to buy diesels, and in fact had to design its own, since the growlers had to cope with 3.9% grades with heavy loads, negotiate hairpin turns, be able to shove a rotary in –65 degree temperatures and 60 mph gales, yet have axle loadings light enough to carry them over spindly trestles. In 1954 the first two units in what was to become a fleet of eight came to Skagway. They were built by GE with Alco engines, and were rated at 800hp. They rode on C-C trucks and had distinctive sloping noses to ease them through snowdrifts. The price tag was $160,000 per unit and nobody complains. The diesels went right to work hauling both passengers and freight and began to cut costs. The steamers were either disposed of or shoved into standby service. The D&RGW mikes went back to the states but were in such poor condition they were scrapped instead of going back into service in Colorado. (They went back in 1946, not when the diesels came) Consol 69 was sold to the Black Hills Central where it is named "Klondike Casey" and hauls tourists. The ugly Army 2-8-2s were sold to the Tweetsie and Rebel Railroads where they were given phony diamond stacks and put into tourist service. Army mike 195 was placed on display at Skagway's Trail of 98 Museum. A 2-600 was placed on display in Whitehorse. The WP&Y kept eight mikes, four 70's and four 80's and a small Mogul, which it used for a time for extra passenger movements and rotary work. They're still around in one form or another. A 70 mike is on display at Bennett with a rotary plow. Two more mikes are lying on their sides with a rotary plow in a stream near Skagway where they were derailed in a storm some years ago and left there. Another mike was destroyed in a roundhouse fire last year and its hulk still reposes among the ashes. Four more mikes (two 70's and two 80's) and the little Mogul rust away at Skagway unserviceable.

New locos were only part of the problems that had to be resolved, and a small one at that. The method of cargo handling cried out for improvement. Yukon-bound freight had to be unloaded from freight cars at Seattle or Vancouver, stowed aboard freighters, unloaded at Skagway and reloaded in WP&Y cars and taken to Whitehorse where it again had to be unloaded into wagons or trucks for final delivery. Gauge prevented a car-float type of interchange as the Alaska Railroad uses, so the WP&Y turned to containerization, using 8 ft boxes. The WP&Y had the same problems the Alaska Railroad did in implementing containerization, foremost among them, being the inability to convince a steamship operator to handle the containers. So the WP&Y added another cap to its hatrack of transport services and went into the steamship business by designing and building its own 4000-ton container ship in 1954 and operating it between Vancouver and Skagway. At Whitehorse, the WP&Y became a trucking operation to deliver the containers to consignees. White Pass took over operation of the pipeline, and uses it to transport fuel oil, although tank cars are also used. The company's air routes were sold to Canadian Pacific, and the Yukon River steamboats succumbed to Alcan Highway competition in 1955.

The containers were loaded at Vancouver and were not unloaded again until they reached the consignee, in the meantime traveling by ocean, rail and truck. Handling costs and damage were greatly reduced, and it made no difference what gauge the track was that the containers traveled over. Thus the WP&Y turned its greatest liability into an asset for the narrow gauge was particularly advantageous for getting through the mountains. The road made container flats out of its boxcars by cutting them down, and also bought boxcars from Hawaii’s Oahu Railway for the same purpose. And so the Gold Rush Narrow Gauge steamed into prosperity again and dividends resumed after a half-century of poverty.

The White Pass & Yukon in 1970 is a study in contrasts. I went there half expecting to find a Silverton-type operation still impregnated with the memories and flavors of- the Klondike Gold Rush, and I was not disappointed. The ancient wooden parlor cars are there, still painted traditional Pullman green, and one would not be surprised were he to find Soapy Smith, Dan McGrew, or Skookum Jim occupying the seats. The station is a big two-story log building. The yard is laced with stub switches, and that 36-inch gauge track makes you think you are in another era. Two old derelict stern wheelers rot on the banks of the Yukon River within sight of the station, the wind blowing through glassless windows and rattling the doors of empty staterooms where once rode the hopes of many prospectors and the disappointments of all but a few as they returned home. The White Pass has preserve its heritage well, in a much more natural way than the Silverton, and the road takes in a lot of revenue hauling those who come to retrace the Trail of 1898, and see this bit of history preserved. But if you look beyond the ornate railings of the parlor cars you will find an ultramodern integrated transportation system that even John G. Kneiling would approve of. Everything is containerized from perishables down to even bulk commodities such as ore concentrates. It keeps the road from having a lot of capital tied up in specialized equipment since a simple flat car can accommodate any load and can be kept in service all the time. Only the containers are specialized in the form of plain boxes, refrigerated vans, and bin-type vans for bulk commodities, which have to be lifted off and dumped in a rotary dumper. If the containers are not needed at certain times, they can be lifted off and stored vertically on top of each other. In that way they do not take up yard storage tracks, and you don't have to store the trucks, air brakes and chassis with them in unproductive storage. The rest of the railroad industry could learn much from the White Pass.

My first glimpse of the White Pass was from my hotel, which overlooked the station in Whitehorse. The parlor cars from the daily passenger train were sitting there on one track, and on another was a string of shiny stainless steel containers resting on steel flat cars built in May 1969 and riding on roller bearing trucks. The 8ft containers that the road used to initiate containerized freight have all been retired in favor of the new 20ft stainless steel vans used now. In the past three years the White Pass has made over $20 million dollars' worth of capital improvements acquiring new equipment, making substantial roadway improvements and building a bulk ore terminal at Skagway.

A headlight appeared in the distance and a pair of GE diesels rumbled by with a string of elderly tank cars. Bulk liquids are about the only thing not containerized, and next to flat cars the road probably has more tanks than anything else. Most of them are very old, and many are from the D&RGW. In the whole Whitehorse area I counted only boxcars in revenue service, and no gondolas or hoppers. The engine house is a two stall affair in Whitehorse, and outside were two new (1969) 1200hp chop-nose Montreal-built diesels, part of an order of seven such units to give added muscle to the line’s freight service. These units resemble an Alco C-628 built for narrow gauge service, and the road switcher design is a departure from the design the road used in its GE units.

On one side of the engine house are the two old sternwheeler steamboats CASCA and WHITEHOURSE. Pictures of the area after the cessation riverboat service indicate that at one time there might have been six boats beached here. One boat has been re-stored and is on display in Whitehorse, and another is on display at Carcross. The vessels are quite old, and it is not hard to imagine that at one time they were the most elegant transportation in the Yukon. Now however they have been abandoned to the elements and it is probably only a matter of time before fire or the ravages of the far north climate remove this fascinating page from the history book of the White Pass.

On the other side of the engine house and in marked contrast to the old riverboats is the ultramodern White Pass container yard. The yard is completely paved over with asphalt, and consists of two through tracks, storage areas, a yard office and a freight house. Containers can be unloaded with a forklift truck and handled within the yard by a straddle crane. The tracks are usually kept full of container flats, loaded or empty, and most of the cars are the new roller bearing cars. The White Pass has a fleet of semi-trailers, and containers destined for inland points away from the railhead are loaded on them for final delivery. LTL containers are placed on metal frames at the freight house loading dock for unloading. The WP&Y has some yellow and green delivery trucks for local deliveries. During the night the two MLW diesels left for Skagway with a freight taking all the loaded container cars in town with them.

Train No. 2, the daily passenger train to Skagway, was due out of Whitehorse at 8:15 AM. After a hearty breakfast I arrived at the depot about 7:45 to get some photos and cheek my suitcase. The small cars have no provisions for storing luggage, so the rail-road provides a box express car for baggage. Next to the station is a concrete ramp, and autos were driving onto a string of flatcars spotted there. The WP&Y provides an auto portage service for those people who want to take their cars on the Alaska Ferry to Skagway and pick up the Alcan Highway at Whitehorse. The fare for this service is stiff-$80 for a vehicle and two passengers in each direction, with additional passenger extra; but the tariff doesn't seem to discourage business as there were quite a few takers. Even a Trailways bus can squeeze on the little flat cars. It quickly became apparent that timekeeping was not the order of the day for White Pass passenger service. The passenger cars were spotted at the station, but the diesels were off down the line switching freight cars. The WP&Y has to get the most out of its locos, and can't allow any train miles to be wasted by allowing trains to go out with less than full capacity. Business has grown considerably in the past couple of years with the opening of a big ore mine, and a roundhouse fire last year destroyed two of the roads new MLW 1200hp diesels, which has left the road short on motive power. Consequently all passenger trains have to carry freight cars, including even the Skagway-Bennett turn, which runs solely in the summer months for the tourists. Year round service is provided by trains 1 and 2 between Whitehorse and Skagway.

The White Pass aggressively promotes its passenger service with full color brochures and a liberal amount of advertising. But unlike the Silverton train, the White Pass is a working narrow gauge and freight takes priority over passengers. So the passengers had to wait until about 9:30 until the diesels got the train put together. First of all the units (two 800hp, GE's) had to spot empty cars at the container yard, and perform whatever switching services were required. Then they had to make up the freight portion of our train which consisted of four container cars with ore containers, 22 tank cars, four flats loaded with autos and a box car. This was coupled in ahead of the passenger equipment, which consisted of the box-express car, a combine coach, and three parlor cars. The “parlor cars’ are really more like lounge cars; they have carpeted floors, and 29 metal-framed chairs with vinyl upholstery running lengthwise through the car, facing the aisle. The chairs are movable, and many people rearranged them. The road has only a single class ticket ($19 one way, including lunch) and it doesn't cost extra to ride in the parlor car than it does in the coach. But then again the road owns only 2 coaches and two combines, and the rest of the equipment is all parlors.

We finally got under way, the old wooden car bouncing along at the end of 35 cars, all pulled by a pair of White Pass's unique diesel units, which were usually out of sight due to the curvy track and the length of the train. My fellow passengers in my car numbered eight; myself, a travel writer from Toronto, a couple from California, and another couple from Seattle with two small children. The combine and first parlor were filled with a tour group, but there were only a handful of passengers traveling on their own. I grabbed the last car because I wanted to get some shots from the back platform. Clearly this is a trip for only the hardiest of traveler; it is long and grueling and the fairly comfortable chairs are the only concessions to luxury. But those who make the entire trip are rewarded by some spectacular scenery. Somehow the WP&Y reminded me of Southern's line into Asheville N.C. with its twisting track, impeccable maintenance and with a traffic density to match.

We left Whitehorse following the Yukon River, passed the restored steamboat on display, and crossed the Alaska Highway, probably the only railroad crossing on the road. We went a few miles then stopped at the big ore concentrator just outside the Whitehorse town limits. Here is the reason for WP&Y's current prosperity. Tracks loaded with ore cars stretched out of sight. Ore is handled in special tub-like containers that somewhat resemble slag cars used in steel mills. These containers are handled on standard container flat cars, and generally move out in unit trains. At Skagway there is a brand new ore bulk loading terminal, and the containers are lifted from the flats and dumped. We didn't pick up or drop off any cars here, but the units were required to do a lot of switching including a special run to the mine with a string of ore containers, and this consumed about 45 minutes which made us even later and made the passengers restless. We got moving again, and the engineer did some pretty fast running on the fairly straight track at the north end of the line, although the ride was pretty rough. However the track was heavily ballasted and laid with fairly heavy rail. The scenery at this end of the line is mostly scrub pine, with a good bit of tundra-like swampy area. We stopped briefly at Carcross, the last town on the line that can be reached by highway. It's a very interesting town, and would be worthy of further exploration. There is only one bridge in town, and it is shared by the railroad and road, but not at the same time.

Carcross is at the northern end of Lake Bennett, which the train parallels for the next couple of hours until it arrives at the Bennett station. The tracks follow the shoreline of this beautiful and placid lake for miles, while barren and rocky mountains rise up on either side. The scenery was really hard on my film supply, and I was gobbling up roll after roll of film, all the time knowing that the best was yet to come. At Bennett we met train no. 1, the northbound train that was about an hour late itself. Bennett was at one time an important stop on the Trail of 98, for it was here that Klondikers had to pause in their journey to build rafts to float down Lake Bennett to the Yukon River. They built a log church here high on a knoll overlooking the lake, and it still stands there within sight of the railroad station although it is now crumbling. All that stands at Bennett now is a wye, a 2-8-2 (No. 73) and rotary plow on display, and a large station which contains two dining rooms, for it is here that passengers are served a bountiful buffet style roast moose luncheon. Two trains can be accommodated at one time.
Lunch time took about a half hour, and the crew was not eager to prolong chow time as we were quite late. The U.S. Customs man got on here, for in a little while we would be entering Alaska again. Everyone was feeling a little better now, and we got under way again, leaving the lake and all navigable water behind us, and heading straight into the mountains to arrive at that gap in the peaks that is known is White Pass, the lowest elevation in the Alaska Coastal Range, and until a mere 28 years ago the only way to get into the vast area between British Columbia and the "railbelt" of Alaska. We were above the timberline, and the barren landscape reminded me of the photos the astronauts brought back from the moon. The only thing growing was a lychen-like vegetation growing on the ground and on the rocks. The ground was littered with big boulders that had probably been deposited there by the most recent retreating glacier. Every mile brought even more spectacular scenic wonders, and I couldn't stay in my chair as I had to be out on the platform shooting photos. I was joined by another man who was taking movies and who had obviously never been on a railfan trip for he didn't know how to brace himself while taking photos from an open vestibule.

The tracks climb from Bennett to a place called Summit. which curiously enough is at the summit of the grade, and thereafter it is all downhill into Skagway. As we climbed toward Summit, and at a point seven miles before we got there, old age finally caught up with one of the old tank cars in our train, and a drawbar was pulled out, parting the train. The air brakes went into emergency, and as we were on an upgrade and there was no forward momentum, the train stopped in the distance of a few inches. I was riding backward on the platform, well braced against the end bulkhead of the coach and the only thing that happened was that my head was banged against the wall. The other fellow however was not so fortunate, for he was riding forward and cut badly when his head was thrown against a retaining valve. Several minor injuries were reported inside the cars by people thrown around by the sudden stop. The crew immediately went into action, first putting out a flag around the bend behind us for there was a freight on our tail. Next they tightened the hand brakes on all the cars in the rear portion of the train in the event the air leaked off to keep it from rolling backwards. The Customs man had to administer first aid. The diesels then had to take the front part of the train to the nearest siding at Summit to cut out the bad order car, an event which consumed another hour and a half. Most passengers were confined to the train during the wait, for the mishap occurred on a rocky ledge with a mountain on one side, and a stream far below on the other. Only the last step of the last car provided room enough to get off. It was a very scenic spot, but mostly passengers were swapping war stories. Some guy was telling us about the time his plane crashed in the Sahara Desert in 1928 and he spent several days there not knowing whether he would be done in by the heat, thirst or the Arabs.

When the units finally got back and we started moving again, I think everybody was wishing the trip would soon be over. We rumbled on to Summit where we stopped for a while as the diesels led some of the freight cars. There is a big floating track gang based at Summit which is working on the track upgrading program. From Summit we started down through the White Pass, and words will just not be adequate to describe the views from the car windows. The track is blasted into the side of the mountain, and runs along on its narrow ledge. Down below, signs mark the route of the Trail of ‘98, and one is moved to reflect on the termination of those old-crazed men who sacrificed all creature comforts to conquer these formidable mountains in their quest for fortune. One is also moved to reflect on the skill of the men who spiked down steel rails through this land. The engineer marvel of the White Pass, the 215-ft. "Steel Bridge", is still there but is no longer used, being a victim of prosperity. As part of the railroad's upgrading program, a track relocation has bypassed the frail-looking structure. The track relocation involved laying about a mile of track, blasting two tunnels through solid rock and building another bridge across the chasm at a much narrower part. This was completed only recently, and as the train circles around the Steel Bridge, one wonders about the severity of the derailment there when the Army operated the line.

Nestled among the mountain peaks at water's edge at the foot of the 3.9% grade, Skagway comes into view a good hour before the train arrives. The tracks curve above Dead Horse Gulch and around Rocky Point, where the rocks jut out overhead above the car roof s. At another place just a few miles before the end of the line the rusting hulks of two Mikados and a rotary plow can be seen in the stream where they came to rest after a derailment in some past blizzard and being too heavy to remove were just left there. Finally we came to a stop at the WP&Y shops on the north end of town where the units cut off and ran around the train so as to take the passenger cars off the rear and push them into the depot. We were due in at 3:45PM, but the cars finally rolled to a stop at the station platform at 8:30 PM. Customs had to inspect our bags, those who had cars had to unload them and then began a scramble for overnight accommodations.

Skagway is a most interesting town and unlike some places, like Durango for instance, has not been spoiled by exploitation of its historic past for the benefit of hordes of tourists. The town appears to have changed little from the day the Klondikers left. Population has declined from a gold-rush peak of 20,000 to today's count of some 700 souls. The streets are lined with old buildings built in the boom days but now deserted, and locked up. There was even a movie theater there at one time, but it too is closed and empty. The main street in town, called Broadway, is unpaved and boasts wooden sidewalks, which contribute to the atmosphere, but some of the other streets in town, are paved. Skagway, being off the beaten track, does not attract the great masses of rubber neckers that those places that are on the main thoroughfares do. Since it is impossible to get there by highway, those people who do visit Skagway have to make a determined effort to do so, have some knowledge and respect for the town's past and want to do more than take a picture of mom and the kids in front of a souvenir stand. This fact probably contributes more to the unspoiled atmosphere than any other. Probably most of the tourists that come there are passengers aboard the cruise ships that make Skagway their northern terminus for the inside passage cruises that are offered from Seattle and Vancouver in the summer months. Those people really don't get around town much for they live on the ship while it is in port. For their benefit the White Pass offers an one-day Skagway, Bennett round trip daily during the summer that runs an hour ahead of trains 1 and 2.

There are only three hotels in town, and by far the most intriguing is the Golden North which is where I had a reservation. This is a three story frame building topped by a great onion-shaped golden dome on the northeast corner. Built in the gold rush days, it is the only authentic hotel of the three, and still retains its old time flavor in the sagging floors, cracking plaster, and grand staircases. The rooms have all been furnished with antiques, a lot of them probably original, and the only concession to modernity is that a few private baths have been installed in some of the rooms. The decor doesn't jump out at you; in fact in looks quite natural. Restaurants are not very numerous either, and about the best is a little Chinese place called Mae's Snack Shack located in a log building with lace curtains at the windows. Somebody I met on the way recommended it that couldn't remember the name but did recall the curtains. Nightlife is confined to one or two drinking establishments; however in the summer time a "days of 98" show in which the shooting of Dan McGrew is re-enacted but our train got in too late that night to see it.

The most interesting thing a visitor can do is walk around town and look at the old buildings. A lot of them have already collapsed and been cleared away, but I understand the local citizenry is trying, to preserve those that are left. A few stores have opened selling miscellaneous curios, but you can still see the old saloons, butcher shops and other stores that catered to the gold-seekers. Back by the railroad are a few ruins of what were once some very fine homes, including one very impressive mansion called the Pullen House. The White Pass's 2-8-2 195 is on display back there too next to the city hall, which was originally built as a college, the first in Alaska. City Hall is still in use, but foliage is moving in on the mike.

The White Pass's facilities in Skagway consist of the wharf and depot at the south end of town by the water's edge, and the shops about a mile up the street at the very north end of town. Originally the rails ran right up the Middle of Broadway, but during the war the Army relocated the tracks along the side of the mountain a block east of their previous location. The White Pass passenger station, baggage room and general offices were originally located in a rambling frame building at the very south end of Broadway, across from the Golden North Hotel, that was built in 1900 and which has a sign across the facade that reads "Railroad Building". Within the past couple of years however, a brand new passenger station and office building (how many new passenger stations are being built today, much less on narrow gauge lines?) has been built to the old building, which is now empty. The new station features a modern, although less spacious, waiting room and ticket office, dispatcher's office, and a row of general offices. About a quarter mile east of the depot and jutting out into Taiya Inlet is the general cargo pier. This facility is asphalt-paved and has two tracks. It is here that the road's container ship "Frank H. Brown" discharges the stainless steel boxes onto the slim-gauge flats. Standard Oil also has a tank farm here for servicing tankers that arrive from "outside." Fuel oil is pumped inland through the pipeline, but volatile materials are shipped in the tank cars. The pier is also used by cruise ships. The morning after my arrival, the Norwegian liner "Meteor" had tied up, and most of the passengers had transferred to tie WP&Y Bennett Turn. That train departs from the wharf rather than the depot when a cruise ship is in port. A lot of the waterfront area has been filled in to make for more land in town. With mountains on all sides the town can only expand into the inlet. At the foot of Broadway is the Alaska Ferry Terminal, and just west of that is the expansive WP&Y bulk ore terminal. The ore containers are emptied here, and there is a special pier with a conveyor loading system so that bulk vessels can load up.

A walk up Broadway will take you to the yards and shops, where you can see the devastating effects of last year's disastrous fire. The conflagration leveled the roundhouse, machinery shops and powerhouse. The only building spared was a two-stall engine house where light repairs were accomplished. The roundhouse appeared to be a pretty large one with a turntable in the middle and a lot of machinery such as lathes, etc., on the floor. At the time of the fire the roundhouse contained a 2-8-2, two brand spanking new MLW 1200hp diesels, a wooden parlor car, a modern steel caboose, and a four-wheel Plymouth switcher, all of which were destroyed. Cleanup has not progressed very far, for the diesels and steamer still sit there surrounded by rubble. All that remained of the parlor car was the steel underframe and the steel chair frames. Where once the machine shop stood. The scorched forms of boilers, lathes, presses, etc. stand grotesquely amid what little is left of their housings. The road has filled in the turntable pit and built a track across it back across the roundhouse foundation to provide some storage tracks, and has also erected a two-stall plywood shelter to protect the diesels from the elements. The yard provides few treasures, for unlike most narrow gauge operations the WP&Y does not relegate its cast-offs to eternal rust among the weeds. Track space is limited, and anything that wastes it is usually disposed of. A mogul and four Mikados are stored in the yard along with a rotary plow, and these are about the only cast-offs you can find. Apparently rotaries are no longer used now that steam is gone. Quite a few parlors are held in reserve here, including most of the newer cars. WP&Y has quite a few modern cars that are of all-welded construction but have open platforms. They have smooth sides and tinted glass.

It was with regret that I had to say goodbye to Skagway and its narrow gauge railroad, however I had to be down at the Ferry dock in time for the 3PM sailing of the M.V. Matanuska on which I had reserved a stateroom. The Matanuska and its three sister ships are part of the Alaska Marine Highway System which extends from Skagway to Prince Rupert, B.C. serving the towns of Haines, Juneau, Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell and Ketchikan.

The southeastern Alaska panhandle where these towns are located is an area of forested mountain ranges that run right down to the sea. The sea is dotted with hundreds islands, some small, others covering hundreds of square miles. The channels between them are often narrow and require skillful navigation to pass through them. Because you are always within sight of land this water route is termed the inside Passage, and is a popular one for summer cruises because the water is calm and the scenery magnificent Because of the terrain there are no highways between any of the towns in the panhandle, and except for the Haines Highway there are no roads leading into any of the coastal towns from the outside, Unless you owned a boat the only way to get in or out or around was to fly. To rectify this situation the State of Alaska established the Alaska Marine Highway in 1963 using five ferries to provide auto transportation between the towns in the southeast and also to provide them with highway access to the rest of the continent at Prince Rupert, B. C. The Ferry system is in two parts, the first of which runs between Whittier, Cordova, Kodiak and Homer, and the southeast system, that serves Prince Rupert and Skagway. One ship per week sails from Seattle for the benefit of those who want a leisurely trip and don't want to fight their way down through Canada. The timetable is a dream come true for rabid timetable-readers, for schedules and itineraries vary so much. Generally there is one vessel in-each direction at each town six day's a week, but times vary from day to day depending on the vessel and what other calls it is making since not all of the towns are called on by all of the vessels. The ships themselves are quite nice. Each is equipped with an auto deck that will accommodate about 100 vehicles with loading ramps in both the stern and each side. Each is also equipped with 44 cabins with upper and lower berths and with and without facilities at a variety of rates depending on the degree of luxury. Furthermore, there are about 400 reclining airline-type chairs to accommodate short-distance passengers or those not desiring staterooms. There is an observation lounge forward, and another smaller one aft. There is also a snack bar and cocktail lounge and a dining room. A newer and larger vessel, the Wickersham with a capacity of 1300 also plies this route and is the pride of the fleet.

Fares are fairly reasonable for passengers, with $36.25 being the price for passage between Skagway and Prince Rupert, a 34-hour trip. Staterooms are additional and meals are also extra, the prices running about the same as a dining car. Nevertheless when compared with the cruise ship fares it's a pretty good bargain and you pass through the same scenery. In the summer there are a lot of people on board, but it must be thoroughly delightful in the off-season. When you take a car on board, however, you begin to pay through the nose. Vehicle passage will cost between $100 200, (P.R.-Skag) arid since passengers are not permitted to occupy vehicles, the cost of a stateroom must be added to the cost. It simply doesn't make any sense to take a car to the 49th state.

We sailed from Skagway on the advertised at 3:00PM, and steamed down the Taiya Inlet to Haines where a big crowd got on board. A Japanese ship was spotted in port loading logs to take back to Japan for textile manufacture I was told. Nearly all of southeast Alaska is included in the Tongass National Forest where the U.S. Government controls the cutting of timber but does not prevent it. Logs for export from U.S. land must be cut in U.S. before they can be exported, but the Japs try to buy uncut round logs from private lands. The passage then leads down the Lynn Canal (so named because of its resemblance to a man-made canal) where glaciers and snow covered mountains can be seen on either side, and comes to Juneau where we docked about 11:00PM as night was falling. There is about an hour's port time in each town, which gives passengers the opportunity to stroll around, a bit. Juneau is a pretty busy place with winding narrow streets, a lot of hills and a traffic congestion problem.

The ferries exist to transport passengers not entertain them, and. so shipboard life can be rather dull. Anyone contemplating a trip should take his warmest winter garb regardless of the season for out on the open water it is cold and the wind chills you through. It is virtually impossible to stand on the open deck for an extended period of time unless you are warmly dressed or can find a spot out of the wind. Most people prefer to sit in one of the lounges where there are comfortable chairs. At night a ranger usually gives a talk on bears or wildlife, and that's about the only form of entertainment. The dining room was attractively furnished and the food quite good. The menu features a number of Alaska seafood selections. Sleep is very easy to come by, for the sea is like glass and one is not conscious of any movement whatsoever.

You can find all the entertainment you need however in the great scenery as the ship navigates the narrow fjords, and calls at the picturesque coastal towns. The farther south you go the less snow you see, and at the southern end of the passage the mountains are covered by timber. Wildlife can be spotted along the shore, and whales and porpoise can often be seen near the ship. At Wrangell and Ketchikan there was time enough to get off and look around a bit. Fishing arid logging are the main industries in these towns. Ketchikan was a pretty big place with several high-rise buildings, and even has a city bus line. South of Ketchikan the ferry heads out into the open Pacific and here the sea began to get a little rough. We finally tied up at Prince Rupert, B.C. about 1:00AM where everyone had to go through customs.

Prince Rupert is British Columbia's northernmost and westernmost town and is a bustling metropolis of 17,000 souls. As in coastal Alaska, logging and salmon and halibut fishing are major elements of the local economy, in addition to a big aluminum smelter nearby. The town has a beautiful and natural harbor, is a port of call for summer cruises, and is also the origin point of CN's Aqua Train service that runs to Whittier, Alaska. As with all B.C. cities I have visited ---the town was well-scrubbed and had a very attractive park with sunken garden. Prince Rupert is close to being as isolated as Alaska's coastal cities. The city is served by the Canadian National's Jasper-Prince Rupert branch, and also by highway 16 and both highway and railroad parallel each other through a narrow band along the Skeena River. However you have to go east all the way to Prince George, 467 miles away, before you can turn south to Vancouver or north to the Alcan Highway. Prince George is also the northern terminus of the Pacific Great Eastern Railroad, and a most interesting trip would be to catch the PGE from Vancouver and go west from Prince George. Western, B.C. is a land of uninhabited wilderness, lakes and mountains.
Since the advent of Aquatrain and with the help of the lumber and mining areas, C.N.'s Prince Rupert branch is a pretty busy piece of track. A sizable freight yard was located next to my hotel and I heard them switching all night. Passenger service on the line is limited to a three-day-a-week train from September to mid-June but starting about June12th and during July and, August a daily service is offered to accommodate the heavy tourist trade. I reported to the station at 9:00AM, and found a classy consist awaiting me. On the rear--an ex-Milwaukee Skytop lounge, a discovery that brought much jubilation for heretofore they had always been used in the Maritime provinces, and lately as a parlor car on the Rapidos, but I learned that in the peak travel season three Skytops go west to run on trains 9 and 10 (not named) although they are not shown in the equipment listings. And ahead of the Skytop was a 7compt-Buffet heavyweight lounge car running as an extra sleeper to accommodate a tour group. Other sleepers included an 8sec-1DR-2Compt heavyweight, and two ex-New York Central lightweights, a 10-6 and a 22-roomette car in which I had my room. A 12-1 was also in the train, but used as a dorm car for diner crews. All this was pulled by a not-too-classy GP-40 that was only two months old, and behind it was a steam generator car to provide steam heat.

Leaving P.R. the train follows the shoreline for a few miles and passes through some fishing villages, then turns inland for a long ride through the Canadian Rockies over a very scenic but lonely single-track railroad for 720 miles until it joins the main line just west of Jasper. The Skytop was a popular place and it was impossible to find a seat here until the novelty began to wear off. The car was very attractively decorated (CN really deserves laurels for their interior decoration never saw a car yet that wasn't pleasing to the eye) with simulated wood paneling on the forward lounge wall. The carpet is red and the upholstery black vinyl. A bar has been located directly in front of the forward lounge wall, and it and the round cocktail tables are in the same simulated wood finish that is on the wall. Service is excellent, and at the cocktail hour the porter puts out pretzel dishes on all the tables. A most pleasant way to travel indeed. It did tend to get a little warm in there what with all the sun coming in. The diner was an old heavyweight that had been given a similar modern decor, and was also very attractive. It had eight tables and a small lounge, which gave the train three lounges to choose from. Meals are served without charge to sleeping car passengers, and that included lunch, dinner and a light breakfast of toast and coffee. Meals are served on a production line basis with two servings in which the first group comes in, eats, and leaves in 45 minutes to make room for the second shift. The menu features only four selections, and the same menu is used for lunch and dinner. Must say that by the time I got to Toronto, I was pretty tired of roast beef. Food is just so-so, but the price is right so I can't complain much. Service is quite good again, the waiters take orders orally without writing anything and it amazes me how they remember who gets what. Unfortunately the Super Continental fell far short of the standards set by trains 9 and 10.
After a good night's sleep, I awoke to find our train about 30 miles west of its eastern terminus, Jasper, Alta. I had a six-hour layover in Jasper but did not get out to the lodge, as it was several miles from town. Jasper is a pretty good-sized town in its own right and has a good-sized railroad yard. There were some passenger cars stored around the station including a mountain observation car in the new image color scheme, which was a bit of a surprise since I didn't think there were any of them left. The Super Continental runs in two sections in the summer, which are scheduled about two hours apart. Train 2 is the Montreal section, and I got some shots of its consist as it stopped in town. Train 4 is the Toronto section, and it was on this train that I had reserved a roomette. It rolled in about an hour late, and I was dismayed to find that I actually had a duplex roomette in one of CN's E-series cars instead of a full-sized roomette.

The train was jammed; there wasn't an empty berth anywhere. A trip on the Super Con in June, July or August is definitely not recommended I wandered into the ex-Milwaukee Super Dome and found that the upstairs seating arrangement had been greatly altered with a number of seats down the side facing the aisle. The windows were so dirty that viewing the scenery was most difficult. The lounge car was quite nice, but hard to find a seat there in the late morning or during the happy hour. The diner was only a single unit 48-seat car, and there were 4 or 5 servings for dinner with the last people being fed around 10PM. The steward was irritable, and many of the car porters were equally unpleasant. Fortunately though crews change at Winnipeg and the crew that got on there was a definite improvement The mountain scenery around Jasper lasts only a couple of hours on the eastbound trip, and then you move into the great prairies which you cross for about 20 hours until you reach Winnipeg. The ride is dreary to say the least, particularly when you are cooped up in your room with no other place to go.
Crossing the prairies the engineer let the FP-9s roll, and we made up all but 20 minutes of what had become a 90-minute time deficit. At Winnipeg a pair of FP-9s and an MLW FPA unit were added, and we started out thorough the heavily wooded area of eastern Manitoba and western Ontario. This was my first visit to this part of Canada, for I have been west of Winnipeg and east of Toronto before, but never in between. Very pretty wilderness country with dozens of lakes. Somewhere out in the wilderness, train 2 which was ahead of us, had discovered a broken rail and our train had to sit there and wait two hours while a crew came to fix it. Another hour was lost at Sioux Lookout when the generator on the buffet coach had broken down and had to be repaired. By the time we got to Toronto we were four hours late, so I walked across the street to the Royal York and got a room. The lateness of the train made it necessary for the dining car to serve an additional meal that otherwise would not have been served, and to their credit it must be said that although they ran out of some things like rolls and pie there was enough food to go around.

The time in Toronto was spent mostly riding around the city on the trolley lines, plus a visit to one of North America's better train watching locations, the Bathurst Street overpass. I also got in a ride on one of the GO Transit trains. They have a fare collection system, which is similar to that used on PATCO's Lindenwold line and the Illinois Central in principle, except that it is manual. You buy a ticket from a vendor, which is in two parts and color coded; one part is given to the collector at the gate where you entrain, and the other part is surrendered to the collector at the gate where you exit. No tickets are collected on the train; in fact the crew cannot pass between the cars. Doors open automatically and announcements are made over the PA system. In Toronto, trolley motormen still make change, and they even have girls in snappy uniforms standing on busy corners during rush hours selling tokens and tickets from their handbags to speed loading of cars by relieving the motorman of taking fares.

I had made a change in my plans and decided to come home directly from Toronto on the through sleeper to New York rather than going on to New York via Montreal. This would give me an opportunity of adding a new railroad to my list, the Toronto Hamilton & Buffalo, and sampling the service on PC Train 62, which used to be known as the 20th Century. Unfortunately, it meant that I would not get to ride behind those great D&H Alco PAs. I reported to the check-in counter in Toronto’s massive and spotless Union Station (which will be razed before long in an "urban renewal" project unfortunately) and found four-car train waiting upstairs. To my astonishment up front was the next best thing to a FA, one of Canadian Pacific's Montreal-built FA's, No. 4097. FA's are now extremely rare on the CPR, and in fact this was the first one I have ever seen in the flesh, and to my knowledge the first one I have ever ridden behind on any road as they were used mainly for freight service. It was still in the original color scheme with the script lettering and looked kind of shabby. Apparently CPR is running out the last miles on these units in this undemanding assignment. The rest of the train consisted of a CPR baggage car and NYC coach which run to Buffalo, a Budd-built NYC 10-6, and another NYC coach for through passengers. The through coach was about half full, and I think a couple of bedrooms were occupied, but I was the only roomette occupant. This was my first ride in an NYC 10-6 (Budd) and must say the roomettes are quite roomy and comfortable, roomier anyway than those cars on the Union Pacific due to a different layout. For reasons, which I cannot understand, these NYC Budd-built 10-6s have become scarce on the merged Penn Central. Although the Budd cars are newer, it seems that just about all sleeper assignments are handled by ex-Pennsy cars.

Canadian Pacific is in charge of this train (which is sometimes known as "The Ontarian", at least on the TH&B portion anyway) between Toronto and Hamilton, 39 miles, however all but eight of these miles represent trackage rights over the Canadian National. At Hamilton the FA was uncoupled and burbled off to be replaced by a New York Central E8. We crossed the Welland Canal, passed through Fort Erie and slammed to a stop at Central Station, Buffalo, where there was a two-hour wait before train 62 left. Sleep was impossible during this interval for it seemed the car was constantly being shuffled from one track to another for no reason at all, and the switch engine hogger was not possessed of a gentle touch on the throttle. A half hour after we arrived, train 14 pulled in on an adjacent track from Detroit with a couple of baggage cars, two practically empty coaches and a Pennsy 10-6 sleeper with a string of Flexivans tied on behind. A half hour after that train 28 arrived from Chicago with a baggage car, ex-New Haven 6-4-6 sleeper, Pennsylvania 10-6 sleeper Scioto Rapids, a sleeper coach diner and three coaches. All of this equipment is put into a blender and mixed thoroughly and emerges as Empire Service train 62 due out of Buffalo at 2:30AM and into Grand Central at 10:10AM. The switching crews had plenty of time to put it together, and the train left Buffalo promptly at 2:30, and the smoothness of what used to be known as the Water Level Route soon induced deep slumber.

Train 62 is as far removed from the 20th Century as the Paoli Local is from the Metroliner. A walk through the train en route to the diner was discouraging as one counted the empty rooms and empty seats, on top of which the equipment does not seem to be in the best state of repair. On arriving in the diner, I found there were only two other people eating breakfast, and the waiters were sitting around reading newspapers. Even after it eased to the Century, this train used to carry a twin unit diner with a lounge section in the kitchen unit, but this day the food was dispensed in an ex-NYC Budd Grill-diner in which some of the single tables face the aisle. Paper tablecloths and napkins are now the rule, but NYC silverware and china still remain. However the breakfast was ample and tasty, and thoroughly enjoyed as the Hudson River flashed by outside. After breakfast I inspected the sleeper coach to determine what the floor layout was, since I could never figure out by looking at them. from the outside how they got 16 single rooms and 10 double rooms in a 22-roomette car when only 12 duplex windows were visible from the outside. It turns out that the rooms are almost exactly as they are on the Budd-built slumber coaches. Double rooms have been made out of roomettes, and the single-level single rooms have the same furnishings as the duplex rooms, only they are a little roomier.

The ride down from Albany was rather uneventful, and we glided into Grand Central right on time, which was something I hadn't really expected. It was the 4th of July and very hot and humid, a condition I hadn't been used to. Down, in the confines of GCT it was like an oven, but I managed to stagger over to the subway shuttle train for the run to Penn Station where I caught the first southbound train to Wilmington. Thus concluded my visit to the 49th State, and one most interesting itineraries ever.