Here in beautiful downtown Clayton, Ohio the weather jockeys are predicting eight inches of fluffy white powder over the next eighteen hours followed by a week of frigid temperatures. It will be the biggest snowfall we've had in a bunch of years, so the grocery stores are packed, the snow crews are working like they're on steroids and home owners are fueling up their snowblowers. The typical Alaskan would gasp with a certain degree of mock shock. "Really?" <yawn> Still, it gives me a chance to regress to knuckle dragging primate times of barricading myself in the house, sitting by the home fires, eating campfire pies and snuggling with my sweetheart. All that is missing is a blue and gold train rumbling along a frosty snow scape. So to scratch my itch, here is the winter AuRoRa heading to Fairbanks, shown here on a beautiful winter morning. The more astute observer will question the need for two locomotives on such a short passenger train. Mike Gerenday shares, "One for pulling, one to provide power to the train set. Plus, you don't want to risk just one locomotive when it's -40 to -50 in winter."

Just under 2 inches of new snow fell the entire month in Anchorage, making it one of the least snowy on record. Therefore, I thought I'd share a big snow story so at least any residents who might be reading this could feel a little more "at home." Or perhaps they could come visit me in little ol' Clayton, Ohio where we currently have 11 inches of the white stuff and temperatures never popping above the freezing mark.

Back in 2004 I was invited to join the snowfleet crew who were assigned to clear the tracks all the way from Anchorage to Grandview to facilitate a north bound freight hauling Spenard Builder Supply commodities from a barge in Seward. The snowfleet was comprised of Spreader 9, GP40 3007, GP40 3012 and Spreader 8 (with ice teeth), and a very lively crew of Frank Armstrong, Duane Frank, Derek Winchester, Daryl Kollander (engineer) and John Combs. Lively, you might ask? They were indeed experienced and professional, but laughed and joked and poked fun at each other, until I had tears streaming down my cheeks.

In Spreader 9, Frank Armstrong used a joystick, the same as found on an F-16 fighter jet, to control the spreader wings to efficiently push the snow away from the tracks. Slow speeds were maintained while plowing snow so as to not encourage the wheels to pop off the rail or even roll the rail itself. One crew member sadly stated, "Been there, done that."

At Portage we picked up Rocky Merle and Ed Rivera to assist in cleaning the snow. In the close up photo of spreader 9, Ed is happily looking out the window at me. Urban legend said Ed was a gruff, no nonsense guy as well as the railroad's tough union representative, but he turned out to be a bundle of fun. Eventually, we switched to spreader 8 to use its ice teeth to clean buildup around the rails.

Of all the jokers in the crew, Duane Frank was the most energetic and creative. You might see him standing behind the switch stand, his arms extended outward and upward from the elbows, the red target blocking his face imitating AOL's Yellow Running Man. Or perhaps he might press his face against the front door window, his lips looking like two suction cups.

One of the crew members spilled his coffee which ran across the counter and down my back. Although it was not very hot, I jumped up and glared angrily at the crew. "You owe me!", I yelled. What did I want? To be dropped off at Spencer to photograph and videotape the crew clearing the siding. The crew agreed, but sent the foreman out with me to provide oversight and protection. Oh, I got some very cool video plus multiple photos of the clearing work performed at Spencer. The day provided incredible memories of a lifetime.

Standing next to the track (yes, the prerequisite 150 feet) you can feel that deep, powerful roar pounding in your chest and ears, from those six, yes six!, 4,000+ horsepower jackhammers, pulling a mile long freight train along beautiful Turnagain Arm. On April 14, 2013, Steve Neel was in the right place at the right time to capture nearly 21,000 hp of blue and gold proudly displaying the state flag's eight gold stars, forming the Big Dipper. These SD70MACs are the backbone of the railroad's freight operations plus powering their long-distance passenger trains.

EMD’s SD70MAC was the first production alternating-current traction locomotive to be delivered and it ushered in a decade of change for the rail industry. EMD would produce more than 1,000 SD70MACs before regular production ended in late 2004 with an additional four built for Alaska Railroad in 2007. 

Five months after starting this website, I embarked on a journey to locate the fabled 24-karat Golden Spike driven at Nenana signifying the completion of the Alaska Railroad and then presented to Colonel Mears by the city of Anchorage for his work as Chairman of the Alaskan Engineering Commission. On September 5, 1997, I began contacting a wide variety of sources including the Harding Home Museum, Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Smithsonian Institute, and the Alaska State Historian, Office of History and Archeology. Very few of these contacts had information and those that did were erroneous. As it turned out the best lead was "Rails North, the Railroads of Alaska and the Yukon" which stated the spike was now owned by the Southern California Arms Collectors Association. When I contacted them, they said they no longer had it and didn't know where it was located. Really? You sold it and then can't (or won't) tell me who you sold it to? My hunt continued for 13 years.

On April 14, 2010, I was contacted by Ben Nysewander who informed me he was the current owner of the golden spike. In one of his emails, he stated, "I just happened on to your website and thought I would let you know where the spike was. There seemed to be a lot of people interested in locating it. I purchased the spike from the estate of Mr. Fred Johnson, of the California Arms Collectors Association in 1983. It is engraved 'Presented to Col. Fredrick Mears by the City of Anchorage in commemoration of the building of the Alaska Railroad 1915-1923'. The reverse side is stamped 'Jos. Mayer Inc. Makers Seattle USA, 14K'. I also have letters from Mayer Bros. and the Alaska 67 committee to Mr Johnson addressing his loaning the spike to them for the 1967 Exposition in Fairbanks." I had a wide variety of entities contact me to purchase and/or borrow the spike, but I honored Mr. Nysewander's request of privacy.

On December 6, 2024, I was contacted by Catherine Kirk, Ben Nysewander's daughter, who told me her father was auctioning the Gold Spike. "My dad asked me to reach out and let you know that the spike will be going up for auction through Christie's in January. It is my hope that the spike will finally end up in a museum so that it can be appreciated by all the railroad and history enthusiasts out there." I appreciated Catherine giving me a "heads up" and passed the information on to the Anchorage Museum as well as the Alaska Railroad.

Yes, I registered on Christie's so I could watch the bidding on this grand historical piece of Alaska Railroad memorabilia (or maybe pick myself up an incredible bargain). On January 25, 2025, the auction date finally arrived and I found myself driving in Louisville, Kentucky as part of a group geocaching trip. I pulled my car safely off the road, logged on to their smartphone app, and watched history unfold. Christie's website displayed $30,000-$50,000 which represented the auction house's educated guess about the likely selling range for an item, but the bidding quickly blew past that mark. When the auctioneer's hammer finally came down at 10:17 a.m. Alaska time, the spike found its forever home with the Anchorage Museum and City of Nenana for $160,000 ($201,600 actual which included the buyer's premium and hammer price and all relevant taxes and shipping costs.)

Now that the spike is returning to Alaska, it will be displayed in turn by the Anchorage Museum and the city of Nenana. My next journey will be to visit the gold spike in person.