South Into Alaska! A Steam Train Ride into The Last Frontier!

Описание: Yes, you can take a train SOUTH into Alaska! And we did! We ride North America’s Northern most operable steam (until the return of Alaska Railroad 557 last year) We return from our call of the wild without going as far as Jack London did. In September of 2025 we tag along with Pete Lerro on one of his extensive charters. We begin in Carcross, Yukon where we once again hop on board the White Pass and Yukon’s train led by steam locomotive 73, a 1947 graduate of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia Pennsylvania (okay, Eddystone), one of four nearly identical locomotives (which includes one running at Dollywood Theme Park in Pigeon Forge Tennessee, the other shorn for parts). We depart this remote outpost of the Yukon and head along the shores of Lake Bennett, 23 miles of glacial water fed by the coast boundary range of Alaska’s panhandle feeding into the mighty Yukon River that will flow to the other side of the last frontier in Nome. We leave the fijord like waters at Bennett a ghost town at the end of the Chilkoot trail once home to colorful characters supporting into the sourdough tenderfoots of the stampede, including the operator of a brothel and hotel that would spawn a grandson who would become a two term president of the USA. We watch as the 73 attacks the steep grade from this outpost in British Columbia and we head to the balloon loop at Fraser where we find the three iconic class of the WP&Y where a 101 locomotive (American Locomotive Company, aka ‘ALCO’, but is Canadian and constructed by the Montreal Locomotive Works, MLW) is fired up next to our 90 class (known by railfans as ‘Shovelnoses’ though never called that on this railroad, they were built by General Electric and powered by the same ALCO 251 plant until they were re-engined with Cummins Power Plants in the 2010’s).

We surmount the Coast Range at White Pass where we drop into Alaska and span the infamous Dead Horse Gulch and pierce tunnel mountain and its spindly trestle as we whip around the curve at Glacier where we end our journey with 73 and its ghostly whistle that comes off a long gone Denver and Rio Grande Western K-28, of which three still steam now on the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge (sister railroad to the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic which spans between Colorado and New Mexico). Don’t forget we also have a cameo from the National Railway Equipment built 3000 series, a oddball contraption built for the Australian market and with the guts of an EMD 645 (like a SD40 combined with wide nose).

So let us take you to the wilds of the inside passage without having to get on a Holland America, Carnival, or Princess Cruise Ship, but we got here ourselves via the Alaska Marine Highway.

Most importantly though, we get what we all came here to see... More ‪@JaiahHazelnutBrown‬!

0:00 Intro
0:33 Carcross Yukon
1:59 Bridge 57-A
3:12 Pennington, British Columbia
5:06 101's at Scheffler
7:31 Pavey
7:55 Guardrail
11:07 Bennett
14:55 Fraser
18:12 Thompson River
19:20 Gateway
20:59 Through the Glacier Divots
22:13 Divide
24:02 White Pass
27:11 Gulch Redux
29:10 An Inspirational Sojourn
31:02 Return to Tunnel Mountain
33:51 Ghosts of the Rio Grande
36:20 Tie Up
37:04 This isn't Bacon, it's Ham you Canadian...