Steaming Along The Tutshi
Here are two more photos from long long ago with my very first digital camera, a little pocket sized Canon point and shoot affair. This was my first visit to Skagway and the legendary gold rush railroad that calls that port town home. In addition to riding the length of the in service mainline to Carcross I also spent part of a Saturday photographing some trains. While most of the railroad is fabulously remote and inaccessible there are a few shots to be had from the roadsides. This view looking down from a pullout along the South Klondike Highway is one of the best.
I stayed at this same spot to capture the Saturday Fraser Meadows Steam excursion next. 1908 Baldwin built 2-8-0 69 leads the four car train through the rugged terrain beside the Tutahi River near MP 25.5 on the Canadian Sub just under two miles from the depot, water tank and balloon loop at Fraser across from the Canadian Customs station rugged terrain beside the Tutshi River. The squat little steamer sadly hasn't operated since 2013 and I'm grateful I got to see her under steam twice.
The White Pass and Yukon Route is America’s busiest tourist railroad and an engineering marvel of any era. Regular tourist trains operate for the four month cruise ship season of mid-May to mid-Sept with the WP&Y largely dormant the remaining 8 months of the year. In days of old it was a 110 mile freight hauler supporting the Yukon mining industry and before that a major WWII supply conduit during the building of the Alaska Hwy. Like the town it calls home, the WP&Y was born during the heady days of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush and experienced booms and busts through the years but has persevered, and today is the most popular excursion for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Alaska each summer.
Construction began in May 1898 and on July 21, 1898, an excursion train hauled passengers for 4 miles out of Skagway, the first train to ever operate in the territory of Alaska. By February of the following year the rails reached 20 miles to the 2885 ft. White Pass Summit and on July 6, 1899 they reached the shote of Lake Bennett, thei approximate half way point to the road's planned terminus on the Yukon River in Whitehorse. It would be another year before the last spike was driven at Carcross on July 29, 1900 completing the railroad.
The 3 ft gauge pike would soldier through boom and bust periods for the next 82 years until the Faro lead/zinc mine which was its major source of revenue in later years closed in 1982. The railroad itself went dormant shortly thereafter but was revived six years later as strictly a passenger hauling tourist operation. While the vast majority of passengers only travel the 20 spectacular mountain climbing miles from tidewater to the international border at White Pass Summit the railroad ultimately reopened 67.5 miles to Carcross, Yukon leaving only the northern 40 miles bereft of trains for the past four decades (excepting one special that traveled all the way to the north end of the line in 1897 for the city's Centennial celebration).
To learn more about this amazing 107 mile long railroad check out the WP&Y's web site for more history and maps and other facts: wpyr.com/history/wpyr-facts/
Fraser, British Columbia
Saturday July 5, 2008
Steaming Along The Tutshi
Here are two more photos from long long ago with my very first digital camera, a little pocket sized Canon point and shoot affair. This was my first visit to Skagway and the legendary gold rush railroad that calls that port town home. In addition to riding the length of the in service mainline to Carcross I also spent part of a Saturday photographing some trains. While most of the railroad is fabulously remote and inaccessible there are a few shots to be had from the roadsides. This view looking down from a pullout along the South Klondike Highway is one of the best.
I stayed at this same spot to capture the Saturday Fraser Meadows Steam excursion next. 1908 Baldwin built 2-8-0 69 leads the four car train through the rugged terrain beside the Tutahi River near MP 25.5 on the Canadian Sub just under two miles from the depot, water tank and balloon loop at Fraser across from the Canadian Customs station rugged terrain beside the Tutshi River. The squat little steamer sadly hasn't operated since 2013 and I'm grateful I got to see her under steam twice.
The White Pass and Yukon Route is America’s busiest tourist railroad and an engineering marvel of any era. Regular tourist trains operate for the four month cruise ship season of mid-May to mid-Sept with the WP&Y largely dormant the remaining 8 months of the year. In days of old it was a 110 mile freight hauler supporting the Yukon mining industry and before that a major WWII supply conduit during the building of the Alaska Hwy. Like the town it calls home, the WP&Y was born during the heady days of the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush and experienced booms and busts through the years but has persevered, and today is the most popular excursion for the hundreds of thousands of tourists who visit Alaska each summer.
Construction began in May 1898 and on July 21, 1898, an excursion train hauled passengers for 4 miles out of Skagway, the first train to ever operate in the territory of Alaska. By February of the following year the rails reached 20 miles to the 2885 ft. White Pass Summit and on July 6, 1899 they reached the shote of Lake Bennett, thei approximate half way point to the road's planned terminus on the Yukon River in Whitehorse. It would be another year before the last spike was driven at Carcross on July 29, 1900 completing the railroad.
The 3 ft gauge pike would soldier through boom and bust periods for the next 82 years until the Faro lead/zinc mine which was its major source of revenue in later years closed in 1982. The railroad itself went dormant shortly thereafter but was revived six years later as strictly a passenger hauling tourist operation. While the vast majority of passengers only travel the 20 spectacular mountain climbing miles from tidewater to the international border at White Pass Summit the railroad ultimately reopened 67.5 miles to Carcross, Yukon leaving only the northern 40 miles bereft of trains for the past four decades (excepting one special that traveled all the way to the north end of the line in 1897 for the city's Centennial celebration).
To learn more about this amazing 107 mile long railroad check out the WP&Y's web site for more history and maps and other facts: wpyr.com/history/wpyr-facts/
Fraser, British Columbia
Saturday July 5, 2008