Welcome To Whittier

I've featured some stunning sunny images of Whittier in the past, but that is not typical....far from it actually. In fact, Whittier's whole reason for existence is largely thanks to it's abominable weather. The town averages 211 days a year where rain or snow falls, with an average of 154 inches of rain and 249 inches of snow annually!

Thanks to this terrible weather that would protect the area from aerial attack on most days, the US Army chose this site at the head of Passage Canal off Prince William Sound as the ideal location for a new port. With significantly smaller tides (12 feet range vs 39 feet in Anchorage) and ice free year round it was exactly what the Army was looking for. In addition it was 60 miles closer to Anchorage than the traditional railroad terminus of Seward and avoided the steep grades and vulnerable trestles over Grandview Summit. Lastly, it would be protected from overland attack by the vast coastal mountains with the only access to the new base afforded via a 2 1/2 mile long rail tunnel that would be easy to guard and secure. For all those reasons construction of the new railhead and Army port was begun in November 1941 only a month before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor thrusting the US into war. The two tunnels were completed with the arrival of the first train to Whittier on June 1, 1943.

They've been rolling ever since and the weather hasn't gotten any better!

Here is train 120S with a long string of empty flats behind GP40-2s 3003 and 3012 (both bought new for the railroad in 1975 and 1978 respectively) emerging from the 2 1/2 mile long Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel at MP F2.6 on the Whittier Branch. In less than two miles they will enter the Whittier yard where the train will be cut up and the flats spotted for loading with containers that have arrived on the weekly AML barge from Seattle.

3003 wears it's as delivered black and gold scheme, one of three presently remaining like this of 11 delivered this way (the first two orders). 3012 was part of the four unit third order from EMD and was actually delivered in the 'Alaska Bold' scheme with a US DOT nose herald. It was the last GP40-2 in that scheme when repainted into the current modern image in 2014.

Whittier, Alaska
Wednesday September 13, 2017

Photo courtesy of Dave Blazejewski