Somewhat further up the
railroad, another river is nearby with a beaver dam.
It appears that there used to
be a railroad wye track here, with a pile of rail and empty ballast
railbed still visible.
Several more
miles north, is the line point Chulitna where we picked up more
people. Sunday is a busy day since the train only operates
Thursday through Sunday. One can have a long weekend at a remote
cabin accessable via the railroad.
Mt. McKinley was around here some
place. It was gone for the next
4 days I was in Talkeetna. After Chulitna, the railroad runs
through a more
open area. I assume this is the view point area shown on the
printed ARR route guide. The Hurricane Turn train does not have
high school route guides. Due to weather conditions, Denali
Peak was not visible. In the below right photograph, Denali Peak
would be visible if there were no clouds. In my original photo,
some flank of white snow and ice covered slope is visible one quarter
of the way from the right edge.
After the
view point, the track has a road crossing of the Parks Highway.
After a right hand curve in the track, the Hurricane Section house is
visible in the distance. The train would continue to the
Hurricane Gulch bridge and after pausing on the bridge for a few
minutes would return on the siding track to wait for the southbound
Denali Star passenger train.
This location is the very first place
on the Alaska Railroad with remotely
thrown switches. Now, the switches have heaters which work in the
wintertime so no train crew members need clean out snow and ice from
the rails. There used to be brooms and shovels at these
locations.
