Railroad Profile: White Pass & Yukon Route

Steven and I have been talking recently, and we had an idea for a model railroad, which I thought I would share.  The White Pass & Yukon Route offers some unique modeling possibilities, but is small enough to fit in a small to medium sized space.  If space allowed, it could also occupy a fairly large space.

The White Pass & Yukon Route is based in Skagway, Alaska, and runs from there, over the White Pass, to Fraser, British Columbia, and Carcross, Yukon Territory.  Eventually, it ends in downtown Whitehorse, YT.  The railroad is approximately 110 miles long, however trains do not regularly operate to Whitehorse.  Most trains do not go any farther than Carcross.

WP&YR Depot and Offices, Skagway, AK.
All photos by James Ogden.

The railroad is headquartered in Skagway, AK.  Skagway is a port town that serves the Yukon, and is a popular cruise ship destination.  Skagway came to be during the Klondike Gold Rush, in the late 1890's, and the railroad itself was founded in Skagway in 1898.  The plan was to build a railroad line all the way to Dawson City, YT, which is about 500 miles from Skagway.  During the Gold Rush, most of the prospectors were headed for Dawson City, to the Klondike River, where the gold was rumored to be.  Before the railroad was built, they would take a ship to either Skagway or Dyea, and then hike over the mountains.  From Skagway, many would go over the White Pass, to the Canadian border, and into the Yukon.  From Dyea, which does not exist today, prospectors would hike up the Chilkoot Trail, where they would cross into Canada and head for the Yukon.  Both passes were dangerous and difficult.  Some enterprising people in Skagway realized that there would be a market for a rail line to Dawson City, and so the White Pass & Yukon Route was founded, and construction began in Skagway.

A train arriving in Skagway.

The White Pass & Yukon Route, as its name implies, took the White Pass over the mountains into the Yukon.  While the White Pass was longer than the Chilkoot Pass, by the distance covered, the grades were less steep and the terrain was less rugged.  Despite the longer distance, that made it more ideal for building a railroad line.  The railroad was never completed to Dawson City, simply because the Gold Rush ended.  Since most of the customer base was to be gold miners, there was no sense in building beyond Whitehorse.  The gold rush was very short lived.  By the time all the prospectors arrived in Skagway or Dyea, got themselves and their gear over the mountains, and then traveled to Dawson City, all the residents of Dawson City had already staked claims where the gold was, and there was very little left.  The gold rush ended with very few of the prospectors ever finding any gold.  However, the railroad was there to stay, and it is because of the railroad that Skagway exists today.  Dyea had no railroad, and when the gold rush was over, the town was abandoned and has disappeared over the last century.

Despite the end of the Klondike Gold Rush, the railroad continued to be an important link from the Yukon to the Pacific Ocean.  For decades, there was no Alaska Highway, connecting Whitehorse to other parts of North America.  The most practical way to ship people and cargo to and from the Yukon was to use Skagway as the port town, and the railroad as the link.  In years since the gold rush, other metal ores have been found in the Yukon.  This lead to the railroad building an ore dock in Skagway, so that the ores, primarily lead ore, could be exported from the Yukon.  At one point the railroad owned ships, barges, tugboats, trucks and a shipping container company to move its cargo.

Car #328, Stewart River, and old wooden car.

As the cruise industry has grown, particularly in Alaska, the business of the railroad has shifted.  Years ago, the ocean going equipment was sold, the container division was absorbed into another company, and the ore cars were set aside.  The old wooden passenger cars were brought back into service, and cruise passengers began booking tours on the White Pass & Yukon Route.  The diesels that once pulled ore through the pass were put to work pulling tourists over the pass.  The tour industry has grown to make the White Pass & Yukon Route the busiest tourist railroad in North America.  It is also the only tourist railroad in the world which crosses an international boundary.  The railroad continues to employ its fleet of antique, wooden passenger cars, with wood stoves for heat.  It has expanded its fleet to include some newer, steel passenger cars, which were designed to be similar in appearance to the older wooden cars.  While tourist operations are currently the primary operations of the railroad, they have recently talked about expanding to haul ore again.

Class 90 diesel locomotive.

The White Pass & Yukon Route is unique for a variety of reasons.  Due to the terrain, it was built at a three foot narrow gauge, rather than the standard, 4' 8.5" gauge of most of North America.  This allowed the railroad to build smaller bridges and tunnels, tighter turns, and lighter equipment.  The railroad still runs two steam locomotives, as well as a rotary snow plow.  The railroad does not run regularly during the winter, but every spring, they do take out the rotary plow for a railfan weekend.  Usually that is in April.  The railroad also has a number of diesel locomotives that they operate, including their famous Class 90 diesels.  Besides the Class 90's, they have several ALCo units, built by Montreal Locomotive Works, and one more modern wide cab locomotive, built by Bombardier.

ALCo diesel locomotive, coupled
between two Class 90's.

Most of the action on the railroad can be found in Skagway, which is convenient for modelling.  Skagway is a small town.  The entire town is four blocks wide by about twenty blocks long.  At one end of town is the waterfront, with the docks. The ore dock still has railroad tracks to it.  The Broadway dock is often used by cruise ships, and there is also a railroad track to that dock.  The railroad dock has tracks out on the dock, and that is also used by cruise ships.  Just north of the docks is the railroad offices, the depot, and the downtown Skagway area.  Skagway, to this day, still has wooden sidewalks and false fronted buildings, just as it did during the gold rush.

The railroad runs up the east side of town, and the railroad shops and yard are at the north end of town, between the mountains and the Skagway River.  Just beyond the shops is the gold rush cemetery, where noteworthy locals, such as Jefferson "Soapy" Smith and Frank Reid.  From there, the railroad continues north into the White Pass.  The Canadian border is at the top of the pass, less than 20 miles from Skagway, but the next town the railroad gets to is Fraser, BC.  From there it continues on to Carcross, and the tracks run all the way to Whitehorse.

Map from www.skagway.com.

A small model railroad could model Just Skagway.  As I mentioned, that is where most of the action is.  Depending on the space available, a model railroad could include just the depot and docks area, with the main line running off to a staging area.  A slightly larger model could also include the yard and shops, again, with the main line running off to a staging area.  In a large space, a portion of the main line could also be built over the White Pass, to Fraser or beyond.  The area the railroad occupies in Skagway actually lends itself to an L or U shaped model railroad quite well.  Such a model could be built and quite accurately represent Skagway.

Bombardier DL-535E(W) diesel locomotive, at the shops.

As far as the railroad goes, the White Pass & Yukon Route is would be a unique and interesting railroad to model.  Because it is not too large, it could be modeled accurately in a fairly small to medium sized space.  The only place where a modeler might run into problems is with the locomotives.  Finding appropriate wooden passenger cars commercially available is fairly easy.  Standard gauge cars could be purchased, and then have new trucks installed.  Even model narrow gauge steam locomotives are common enough.  They can be a little tricker to find, but there have been enough narrow gauge rail lines in the past that steam locomotives are generally pretty easy to find.  The challenge is going to be in finding narrow gauge diesel locomotives.  I know that the Class 90's have been commercially manufactures, in brass, but they are quite rare, and being brass models, they can be quite expensive.  Kits have been offered off and on for the ALCo locomotives, and those are usually affordable.  Finding a narrow gauge ALCo fully assembled is also tricky.  As far as the Bombardier locomotive goes, that would almost certainly need to be scratchbuilt.  The railroad only owns one though, so a modeler could even leave it out of their fleet.  Of course, choosing to model the railroad when they only operated steam locomotives would eliminate the need for any of the rare and unique diesel locomotives.  Overall, I think the White Pass & Yukon Route lends itself quite well to model railroading, and with its history, there are a lot of modeling possibilities.

Photo of the Week: 3/4/2011

Once again, that wonderful day called Friday has arrived, the day that brings in another weekend and another photo of the week!

Today's photo comes from last March. Last spring came early, and by this time last year all the snow was gone in Nashua (in comparison, we are down to about 3 feet of the stuff right now). But there was still plenty of snow in the mountains, and my younger brother and I wanted to go snowshoeing before it was all gone. We picked Mount Waumbek, which at 4006 feet is almost at the bottom of the 4000 footers list. We were off the mountain much earlier than we expected, so we made a few stops on the way south, including here:

This is what is left of the J. E. Henry Railway, which I can guarantee you have never heard of before. It was started as a logging railroad out of Lincoln. I believe it was standard gauge, but it is hard to find any info on the railroad now. Today, the railroad serves a very different purpose. What is left of the line is entirely on the property of the Loon Mountain ski resort. Loon Mountain owns and operates the railroad for the skiers. The ski resort area is so huge that walking is practical but most people don't want to do it. Instead, the train hauls them around on two home-built open coaches behind the locomotive.

The engineer probably gets bored because when he saw me with my camera, more interested in the train than skis, he invited me into the cab right away. We rode back and forth a few times talking about the train. It is a 2 foot gauge wood fired steam engine built in Germany in the 1930s. I do not know whether it ran in Germany or if it was built for Maine's vast network of 2 foot gauge logging railroads, but after its first life, it was moved to Gilford, a small town in New Hampshire, where it ran on a tourist railroad near the airport. The railroad and all traces of it are long gone now, and the locomotive was moved to Lincoln for ski service, where it has remained ever since. The locomotive is so small that it is not equipped with brakes, instead the engineer moves the reverser into reverse and basically tries to run the locomotive in reverse to slow it down. Normally this would destroy the cylinders on a regular steam engine, but the steam pressure is so low on this locomotive that it can be done safely.

Because this is not operated as a tourist railroad, there is no fare to ride the train. You don't even need to show your ski ticket. You just climb on board. Most railfans don't know about it though, because Loon Mountain does not advertise it and it can't be seen from the road. I happened across a photo of it once, and found the ski resort on a map, and decided I just had to visit this. Since it is at a ski resort, it only runs in the winter. Notice the big plow on the front of the locomotive!

Loon Mountain ski resort operates the train. It is located on the Kancamagus Highway (NH route 112) just east of Lincoln. It's hard to miss the entrance to the ski resort, it's on the left and there's another logging steamer on display out front from the original railroad. It's not easy to find a place to park, but if you're ever in the area in wintertime it's worth a quick visit.

(Belated) Photo of the Week: 2/20/11

Normally Steven would have done this post, as he is usually the one who takes care of the Photo of the Week.  He has a better eye for that stuff anyway, being more of a photographer than I am.  I take pictures, but I do not ever promise to take good ones.  Following that promise, I do not promise that today's photo will be a particular good or beautiful photo.  But I hope it will at least be interesting, and maybe even a little unusual.

The photo I have chosen to share is one I took just over a year ago.  January 2009 found me on a cruise in the Caribbean.  It probably will not surprise anyone that I took the train to Fort Lauderdale to meet the ship.  Once on the cruise, we made ports of call in the Bahamas, Aruba, Curacao, Panama, and Costa Rica.  In Panama and Costa Rica, some of the shore excursions offered train rides.  Of course, I was excited to experience the railroads in Central America.  In Panama, I chose to experience the engineering marvel that is the Panama Canal instead of riding the train.  To make up for missing the Panama Canal Railroad, I decided that a train ride was in order for the Costa Rica port of call.

The train was operated by INCOFER, which is an abbreviation for Instituto Costarricense de Ferrocarriles, which simply translates to the Costa Rican Institution of Railroads.  That is their national rail operator.  They primarily operate freight trains, on a 3-foot 6-inch gauge system.  They operate regular passenger trains near the nation's capital of San José.  Beyond that, they operate freight trains and occasional chartered passenger trains, such as the one I got to ride.  We rode primarily along the coast, near Puerto Limón.  During the trip, the train came to a stop and we were allowed to get out on the beach and take pictures.  Of course, I did take pictures of the Caribbean Sea, but I also turned around and took the opportunity to snap a few photos of the train.  Here is my favorite of the bunch:

This is the head end of the train.  As you can see, I was about the only person who turned the camera around.  In fact, not a lot of people even got off the train.  It was hot and humid, and I think a lot of people were content to just keep sitting!  The locomotive is a General Electric U6B.  There were two varieties of passenger cars.  The one in the picture was built in 1960, in Tokyo.  The first two cars were this type.  The rear two cars were much older and even had open end platforms.  The train certainly had no air conditioning, and had no electricity.  There were bathrooms on board, but we were asked to use those only in an emergency.  They were such that when you opened the toilet lid, you could see the rail beneath the car!  Passing from one car to the next was possible, although slightly treacherous while underway.  There were no diaphragms or hand holds between cars.  In fact, there was even a gap between cars, so you had to step over the couplers to get to the next car.


The whole operation was very casual compared to what we are accustomed to in the United States.  We left from a very small town called La Peña.  There is no station in town, so the train had pulled up along side a dirt road.  We stepped off our bus there and climbed aboard the train.  Once aboard, most people chose to open the windows, if they were not already open.  As we rode along, there was a tour guide on the car who gave us information about the area.  The beach stop was a spur of the moment decision, and was in an area where there was only a single main track.  There were no signals where we were, and switches were all the hand throw variety.  All operations were coordinated via radio.  The beach stop ended suddenly as the train crew heard on the radio that there was a faster freight approaching from behind us, and we had to scramble to find a siding and get out of that train's way.  Our journey ended about 16 miles later, in Moin.  It certainly was a unique experience.

The rest of the photos are viewable on our Facebook page.