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Week of March 4 - The last three original paint GP40-2s cross 20 Mile River on a cold stormy day. This is my favorite Alaska Railroad paint scheme. 2/16/21
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Week of March 11 - WASILLA, ALASKA: WHERE THAT LONESOME WHISTLE BLOWS

A red light stopped me this morning at the corner of Parks Highway and Lucille Street. The tracks of the Alaska Railroad paralleled the highway directly across the spot from where I sat. I had different “Lonesome Whistle” train picture possibilities in mind, both to the west and east.

The traffic light turned green. I turned right, to the east. Seconds later, I got a good view of a stretch of frozen-over Lake Lucille. I could see three ice fishing tents, too far out. If I drove out onto the ice and framed one or more tents with the railroad tracks in the background, a passing train would look like nothing more than an almost invisible thread.

I made a “U” turn and drove east to check the signal light at Dog Wash Crossing to see if it had already turned green for northbound traffic. It hadn’t. I was surprised to find it green for southbound traffic, red for north. This meant the southbound freight was late but it would reach the light before the northbound AuRoRa Winter Train did. This would make the AuRoRa about an hour late itself. I decided to park where I had a good view of the light and wait for the freight.

I readied Quixote the double-eyed drone to fly and listened for the whistle of the southbound freight. I formed a mental image of the photo I wanted to take. I did not want to waste battery power. I planned to launch Quixote the moment I heard the whistle and fly him to a certain spot where I could get a photo of the entire length of the freight curving backward into the heart of downtown Wasilla.

I never heard the whistle. The first notice of the freight’s approach came when I saw the crossing arms begin to lift to let the freight come through. I flew Quixote straight to this spot and had to shoot right here. I shot some more afterward, of course, but none were what I wanted. I brought Quixote back to the car and headed west to look for the right place to photograph the southbound AuRoRa. I will post the resultant photo tomorrow morning.

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Week of March 18 - A look back to about a month ago before our bitter cold moved in, I decided to try my luck at some night time shooting. Monday, 15 January 2024: Alaska Railroad Corporation (ARRC) Fairbanks Yard Job has just tied on to a string of loaded tanks and one buffer car as they prepare to switch out the Marathon North Pole Terminal. Here they are at MP-G16.6 on the Eielson branch which runs from Fairbanks Yard (MPG-0) to the end of the railroad at Eielson's AFB (MPG-24.5). A string of empty coal cars from Eielson can be see on the siding behind the locomotives that the crew will take back to Fairbanks later in the evening. In addition they will bring a string of empty tanks that they will soon collect from inside the terminal after spotting their loads. In charge of todays yard job is GP40-2's 3008 and 3012 both of which were built new for the railroad in mid to late 1970's.

Alaska Railroad Corporation, Fairbanks Yard Job North Pole, Alaska

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Week of March 25 - Floating Freight Car Friday

In a prior post in this series I shared a photo of the Whittier Provider being pulled off the slip to begin its trip north to Whittier. Here is their sister vessel, the Fairbanks Provider, which had been holding out in Elliot Bay awaiting her turn to be brought into position to have the railcars stripped off her deck.

Three barges owned and operated by Alaska Marine Lines (a member of the Lynden family of companies) are constantly cycling between Seattle and Whittier, AK carrying up to 40 railcars on 8 tracks with 32 rows of containers stacked two or three high in the racks above. The rails are flush with the deck so that high reach fork lifts equipped with twist locks can drive on and off the barge before rail cars are loaded to pick or stack the containers. To add to the fascination AML owns flat decks they they lash anything and everything to and then stack on top of the containers. I've seen graders, excavators, campers, fire trucks, boats, and even prefabricated outhouses! Oh, and if that wasn't enough the upper level is also wired for 480V power so refrigerated containers can be plugged in to be kept cool in summer and warm in the sub zero winter months. There truly is nothing else like it!

This particular barge is the Fairbanks Provider built by Gunderson in 2001, and it is 420 ft long and 100 ft wide with 3190 linear feet of track on the deck and a dead weight of 15,300 tons! Movement of the barges is contracted to Western Towboat and out of sight but ready to move her into position is harbor tug, Westrac. The 63.4 ft long vessel was built in house by Western Towboat in 1987 and is powered by two, Caterpillar 3512 diesel engines for a total rated 2,500 horsepower.

Unlike in Whittier the containers are not handled in the same location as the railcars so a barge arriving from Alaska will stop here first to unload railcars then be moved to AML's yard down on the Duwamish waterway to be unloaded and reloaded. Northbound the process will reverse and the barge will stop here to load railcars before beginning their thousand mile 7 day trip up the Inside Passage and across the Gulf of Alaska.

In the background rises the lovely neighborhood of Queen Anne Hill.

Seattle, Washington
Wednesday October 30, 2013

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Week of April 1 - Not the best of shots as I was driving but nice sunrise over the rail yard this morning. 8/22/23

Pictures of the Week for 3/4/2024 - 4/1/2024