be an extra freight but these have been rare. These trains depart Anchorage and Fairbanks for the run north and south between 1930 and 2100 and dur- ing the summer months will not depart until after the arrival of the passenger train.
Currently the railroad is running three coal trains a week between An- chorage and the Usibelli Coal Mine just north of Healy. Generally these run north on Sunday, Tuesday and Thurs- day afternoons, although the schedule can and does vary considerably based on mine requirements. Once in Usibel- li/Healy the train will load and run south on Monday, Wednesday and Fri- day afternoons. Trains take about ten hours to cover the distance between Anchorage and Usibelli/Healy. There is also a Monday through Friday coal turn that runs out of Fairbanks south to Usibelli/Healy and returns to Fair- banks. This train’s departure varies day to day depending on the needs and requirements of the railroad. In the summer months one can also count on the daily Denali Star passen- ger train departing Anchorage and Fairbanks at 0815 each morning. The summer passenger season runs May 15 through September 15; during the rest of the year this train runs north on Sat- urday only and south on Sunday only. Additional passenger trains run in con- junction with the arrival of the summer cruise ships. You can count on three ad- ditional passenger trains on Saturdays and every Monday and Wednesday al- ternately. So one week there will be ex- tra trains on Saturday and Monday and the following week it will be Satur- day and Wednesday. These trains run for the cruise ships and the schedule varies, but in general on cruise ship days there will be a southbound cruise train out of Fairbanks early in the morning (around 0400), followed by the southbound Denali Star at 0815. In An- chorage the northbound Denali Star departs at 0815 followed by a cruise train departure that comes north from Seward, arrives at Anchorage around 0930, pauses briefly and continues north. This train will turn at McKinley, just south of Talkeetna and return to Seward. About an hour later another cruise train from Whittier will depart north for Fairbanks.
During the summer months the rail- road also runs a couple of gravel trains Monday-Friday, although extra gravel trains are a fairly common occurrence on the weekends as well. The gravel trains run on a basic 12 hour load/un- load cycle departing Anchorage in the early morning at 0530 and 0815, first heading north to be loaded at Birch- wood, Palmer, or Kashwitna (depend- ing on the customer), then back south through Anchorage to South Anchor- age where they are unloaded at one of
34 JUNE 2013 •
RAILFAN.COM
TOP: A special train operated for the Alaska State Fair is sitting at the Palmer depot on the Palmer branch awaiting her returning passengers. The Alaska Railroad runs several trains to the State Fair each year, although they no longer use the classic Budd RDC’s. ABOVE: The Palmer depot is only used during the Alaska State Fair. The 3014 is a GP40-2 equipped with HEP to handle occasional passenger assignments like this one.
the two unloading facilities. They then go north back to Anchorage where the cycle then repeats itself the next day. Lastly the railroad runs two work trains for most of the year. These can show up anywhere on the system at any time but generally work five days a week with one train having Friday-Sat- urday off and the other Sunday-Mon- day as off days.
Power for the freight trains can be
two to five units often in distributed power (DP) mode and usually the SD70MAC’s, although it isn’t uncom- mon to see an older Geep in the mix. The coal trains will use three MAC’s. The Denali Star will have two MAC’s, usually the later models as they are head-end power (HEP) equipped. The cruise trains will run with one MAC ex- cept the train that turns at McKinley,
as it will have a MAC on one end and a HEP equipped Geep on the other. The work trains
will rate two or three
Geeps and the Fairbanks coal turn is usually a MAC and a Geep. Lastly the gravel trains will run with two MAC’s. One of the two trains will run with a MAC on each end, while the other will have two on the head end.
Chasing the Alaska Railroad
The Alaska Railroad is a hard one to chase, especially north out of Anchor- age. Immediately upon departure from Anchorage Yard the railroad enters Joint
Base Elmendorf Richardson
(JBER) and, unless you are military, access is limited. This where an DeLorme Alaska Atlas
& Gazetteer will prove its worth ten times over. The first access point north
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