While it was not raining, the
afternoon turn into Whittier was a little wet from rain since the
Prince William Sound is virtually a rain forest. About to leave
was the Grandview cruise trainset. In the lower left photograph,
the Buckner Building is visible. Until the early 1960's it was a
city within a city for the military. The military left and the
building still stands empty.
Below left, traversing Portage Valley looking to the rear of the
train. Below right, Portage is visible on the right.
On a siding parallel to the mainline sat another work train.
Earlier in the day, they had been somewhere below the Spencer Lake area
digging for material to be used by the railroad.
Somehow, I stopped taking photographs and enjoyed the rest of the ride
back to Anchorage in peace and relaxation. After departing the
train in Anchorage, I joined 2 friends for drinks and appitizers at a
nice brewery restaurant near the depot. The next day, Thursday I
had very little planned. Knowing that the place I was staying at
was near the railroad in south Anchorage, I figured I would take a walk
in the morning to find out just how close the track was. My plan
was to blunder my way to the nearest railroad crossing with my camera
to take pictures of the Glacier Discovery. After a 15 minute
walk, I found myself at the Cross Road grade crossing with the Alaska
Railroad track. The train would be coming southbound through a
right hand curve next to the Ocean View neighborhood. This is the
neighborhood that features homes with their own landing strip and
hangars built into homes. Aside from having my camera, I was
unprepared for what was about to pass by. The Glacier Discovery,
with the "weekend crew" was slighty different in consist on this
particular day.
I had been concentrating on taking a photograph of the locomotive and
at first did not notice the second locomotive. After turning to
the right as the train passed by, I noticed that this Glacier Discovery
looked very different. Then it looked like the regular
train. Something special was going on here. After reporting
back to base camp, my mole knew nothing about any different consist on
this day. I had to see this train again and photograph it in a
more open spot.
The Glacier Discovery arrives back at the Anchorage depot at about 9
o'clock PM which gave me the whole day to do something else. At
the appropriate time, I borrowed the host's truck and
sped out towards Potter's Marsh. Since "sunlight" was late afternoon at
8:30 PM I crossed the track by foot and worked my down the embankment
onto a green field a few hundred feet from the Cook Inlet. As I
waited for the train, the mosquitos attacked relentlessly. At
least I was early and did capture the northbound Glacier
Discovery. Below are the results. I think this is one of
the most interesting consists that I have ever seen of the Glacier
Discovery.
The consist has the usual locomotive 2002, 3014, a power car, the
Aurora business car, one high level car an additional coach and then
the regular Glacier Discovery.
The next day I was scheduled to ride
the Glacier Discovery again and did find out why the train looked so
unusual. The next day train ride was also to be unusual for me
since I had been booked to ride on the Major Marine Tours Emerald Sea
from Whittier to Blackstone Bay.
Glacier Discovery and Prince
William Sound glacier cruise
