A special trip on the WP&YR railway
It doesn’t matter how many times I ride it, I never get enough of the White Pass & Yukon Route railway. Yesterday, though, was very special – a long-time friend was being honoured by the company for 20 years of promoting the railway on his private Web site, and for his efforts to preserve White Pass history.
The day required a fairly early start, and just before 07:30 I stopped at the Emerald Lake viewpoint to take a few photos, including this one of the fresh snow on Montana Mountain.
In another week or so the Fall colours on Bove Island should be at their peak.
The weather across the White Pass summit was very bad, and it was a much slower drive than I’d hoped for, but I met a few friends and White Pass employees at the depot in Skagway at 08:00 (09:00 Yukon time). We all walked over to “the Junction”, and at 08:17, our train, pulled by a pair of 45-year-old Alco 251D locomotives, arrived from the dock.
Right behind the locomotives was our car, a luxury Club Car which I didn’t know existed. Even the car’s name is unique – while the other passenger cars are all named for northern rivers and lakes, #400 honours Michael J. Heney, the railroad contractor who made the White Pass dream possible.
We quickly boarded and got settled, and the train continued north. Yes, the chairs are as comfortable as they look 🙂
Passing Shops on the way out of town.
After the car’s attendant served drinks and snacks, Allison Haas, Marketing Manager for the railway, presented Boerries Burkhardt with some material to thank him for his work with Whitepassfan.net, which he started in 1994, and the White Pass & Yukon Route Fan Mailing List, which he started in 1998 and which currently has 465 members around the world. Included was a 20-year pin, usually presented to employees for service of that length – presenting it to a railfan is unique, and I’m extremely pleased to see the company recognize the priceless PR work being done.
Boerries then introduced the group to a series of presentations that he’s making to museums during this trip from his home in Germany. The gem is this original map of the British Columbia Yukon Railway (part of the White Pass), from the White Pass Summit to Bennett Lake. It is signed by Michael J. Heney, and at a scale of 400 feet to 1 inch, is 21 feet long! The detail is wonderful and it’s truly a work of art. Another map from the series, the one showing the line Skagway to the summit, went up for auction on eBay at the same time as this one, and went to a private collector for some $7,000.
Boerries “preaching to the choir”, sharing his passion for the railway and its history.
The weather was cool and wet, so the large covered deck at the front of the coach got little use.
Though hidden by the fog, we reached Summit Lake (which is a few hundred feet north of the international border, in BC) at 09:40, and the locomotives were run to the other end of the train to pull us back down the hill.
As is usually the case, we met another train at Summit Lake, and its locomotives were also moved to what would become the downhill end.
One more manual switch at the south end of the Summit siding, and at 09:55 we were on our way back to Skagway. The border monument can just barely be seen on top of the rock bluff on the left.
Looking especially eerie in the fog, this is the long-abandoned cantilever bridge, bypassed when heavy ore hauls started in the 1960s.
Exiting the tunnel at Tunnel Mountain.
A more distant look at the tunnel.
Bridge 15B (the second bridge north of Mile 15).
The photos of construction crews working to cut the grade at Slippery Rock in 1898 are among the most impressive railway construction photos ever taken (see this illustrated article.
Bridge 15A.
Boerries has started making books of photos from his huge White Pass collection (not for sale, just for fun) – this one has some 50 photos of the railway operation at Whitehorse.
The weather may have been dull outside, but it was certainly bright in the rail car 🙂
The Skagway River. This is a pretty typical early-Fall day in Skagway.
Back in Skagway, there’s a great deal of work being done to expand the car storage yard.
Back on the ground at 11:10, retired Whitepassers Carl Mulvihill and John McDermott modelled the old and the new of White Pass jackets for the group.
A shot of the ticket window in the depot before heading out for lunch and a walk around town.
It’s End-of-the-Cruise-Season 80% Off Sale time!! Get your baubles now before they’re all gone!! 🙂
Looking south on Broadway. The temperature hit 56°F (13C) but the dampness made it seem cooler. At the Summit, it was 41°F (5C).
Okay, just a couple more train pictures and I can move on 🙂
I took a walk out on the breakwater to get some photos of the Grand Princess. In 9 days, Cathy and I will be flying to Vancouver to board our next cruise ship, to Hawaii!
Before leaving Skagway, I walked over to the car storage area for a closer look at the yard expansion work being done.
After many more miles of driving through thick fog, it was great to get back into the rain shadow of the coastal mountains, and then the Fall colours – this was shot at Dail Peak, right at the BC-Yukon border. I have a very busy week coming, but I hope to be able to make one more drive down for the peak of the colours.
I got home at about 4:00, extremely happy to have been able to spend a few hours with people who are passionate about what they do. It’s pretty impressive to see a company in the modern world that can attract not only workers, but fans, with the kind of enthusiasm and loyalty that Whitepassers have. I’m proud to be one of them – my RailsNorth site has now been running for 17 years (and some day soon I need to take an inventory of the material in the White Pass part of my collection) 🙂
About The Author
