For 100 Years, the Alaska Railroad Has Been a Critical Artery Pumping Passengers and Freight Through the State

For each 640 sq. miles in Alaska, there is only one mile of paved highway. Which is why, when Congress set its sights on the rugged northern territory for strategic army operations and financial improvement greater than 100 years in the past, it selected to develop a unique mode of transportation: The Alaska Railroad.

The Alaska Railroad’s fundamental artery stretches 470 miles, from Seward within the south to Fairbanks within the state’s inside. Within the early 1900s, Congress took an curiosity in Alaska’s mineral deposits and strategic location and funded a $35 million, eight-year development mission. Starting in 1914, roughly 4,500 employees utilized pre-existing tracks from two defunct railroad firms, Alaska Central Railroad and Alaska Northern Railway Firm, to construct the contiguous transportation hyperlink up the state.

After its completion in June 1923, President Warren Harding took a tour throughout the Western United States to Alaska that he known as the “Voyage of Understanding.” For about 30 miles between Wasilla and Willow, the president drove the prepare himself, with the First Woman beside him. His voyage ended within the village of Nenana, the place he drove the ultimate golden stake into the bottom connecting the railroad’s northern and southern tracks and marking the mission’s completion.

As we speak, the Alaska Railroad Company—a self-sustaining state firm managed by a seven-member board of administrators appointed by the governor—serves as the first transportation and freight supply service to and from distant communities, whereas additionally offering a key hyperlink to the vacationer trade. The rails, that are open year-round, carry about half 1,000,000 passengers yearly from a hub in Anchorage to 9 completely different locations, together with Denali Nationwide Park, Chugach Nationwide Forest and the Kenai Peninsula. Alongside the best way, vacationers have the choice to disembark for excursions, corresponding to climbing on the base of North America’s tallest peak or rafting at Spencer Glacier.

“Alaska is such a younger state,” says Invoice O’Leary, Alaska Railroad’s first state-grown president and CEO. He grew up on the railroad’s northernmost terminal in Fairbanks, the place the sound of prepare whistles had been a part of the material of on a regular basis life. “100 years in the past, [Alaska] was simply wild, huge wilderness, for essentially the most half. For a company created again in 1923 to be surviving and thriving in 2023 speaks to the significance of the Alaska Railroad to the state.”

This summer season, the Alaska Railroad is celebrating its centennial yr in enterprise. To commemorate, it’s internet hosting open home celebrations on the Anchorage Depot (Might 6) and the Fairbanks Depot (September 23), the place the general public can expertise free rain rides, static shows of railroad locomotives, music and family-friendly actions. Moreover, the corporate has created a storytelling mission, Tales from the Rails, to assemble anecdotes and reminiscences from passengers through the years. On July 15, 2023, on the website the place President Harding drove the ultimate golden stake, the Alaska Railroad is holding a block occasion with leisure, meals and a recreation of that pivotal second. Dignitaries from President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to native elected officers have been invited to the ceremony.

Railroad passengers this yr may even get to take part within the centennial celebration. From late Might to early September, the Alaska Railroad is providing a 12-day Centennial Particular to experience the full-length of the historic fundamental line and expertise some facet excursions. All through 2023, prepare riders shall be handled to a particular menu, vintage-inspired drinks, souvenir postcards and centennial merchandise.

The railroad over time

The railroad hasn’t at all times been the vacationer magnet and key piece of financial infrastructure that it’s in the present day. Between its completion and the beginning of World Battle II, the railroad employed 5,400 employees in Seward, Anchorage and Fairbanks, and the prepare was largely utilized to maneuver mail, passengers and freight between Seward, Anchorage and Fairbanks.

“The U.S. authorities at that time acknowledged the strategic worth of getting infrastructure like that in an space as huge as Alaska,” O’Leary says. “The railroad was a key piece of infrastructure all through World Battle II as plenty of freight was transported from Anchorage as much as Fairbanks, the place there have been massive army presences.”

After the conflict, the railroad was in a state of “disrepair” as a result of important put on and tear with out correct upkeep, O’Leary says. In consequence, Congress authorized a $100 million observe rehabilitation program. An excellent rebuilding came about within the Fifties. Starting within the early ‘70s, when the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was below development, the railroad hauled piping supplies between Valdez, Seward and Fairbanks. In response to demand, the railroad’s workforce elevated to greater than 1,000 between 1970 and 1975. However by the mid ‘80s, the railroad was in want of upkeep as soon as once more, and the U.S. now not noticed a use for the corporate. President Ronald Reagan transferred its possession to the state for $22 million in 1985. For the previous 40 years, the road has been owned by Alaska Railroad Company with a mission to earn a revenue to keep up itself, whereas additionally serving the folks of Alaska and performing as an agent for financial improvement for the state.

The rise of oil exploration within the state, compounded by the cruise trade setting its sights on Alaska, has helped propel the railroad into in the present day. Now, freight service—together with pure useful resource transportation—accounts for greater than half of the Alaska Railroad Company’s income. The rails transfer main commodities all through the state and even to and from the Decrease 48, together with petroleum merchandise, oilfield provides, gravel, coal and dry items. Passenger service accounts for less than 20 % of the corporate’s income, although each freight and passenger service hit a record-setting internet earnings of $30.9 million in 2021.

In 2022, the railroad hosted greater than 460,000 passengers, about 40 % of which got here by way of “pull” contracts with the most important cruise strains (that means the railroad contracts with cruise firms to tug their very own rail vehicles from port cities to cruise-owned property all through the state), in line with Alaska Railroad Company’s vice chairman of promoting and customer support Dale Wade.

“Alaska is so bereft of primary infrastructure,” O’Leary says. “Basic items that different folks within the decrease 48 simply take without any consideration, we simply haven’t got. So to have 600 miles of rail to have the ability to present value environment friendly, secure passenger transport, freight transport, [and] actual property companies is fairly superb, and tremendous essential to this state.”

The Alaska Railroad’s many routes

Passengers in the present day may be transported to off-the-grid wilderness, or to the previous gold mining small city of Girdwood. They’ll go to rehabilitated brown bears on the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Heart, or zipline by way of a nationwide park. In the event that they spend three nights up north by Fairbanks, significantly on the aurora tour, Wade practically ensures (with a 90 % accuracy, he says) they are going to see the famed northern lights between September and April. The Alaska Railroad provides the whole lot from day journeys and excursions from Anchorage, to ten-day lengthy journey packages that capitalize on the state’s 24 hours of sunshine throughout summer season months and snowscape throughout winter months.

“All of our youngsters are great,” O’Leary says when requested which of the Alaska Railroad’s route choices is his favourite. “For sheer great thing about the run, the Anchorage to Seward journey is super. You’re off the highway system for almost all of it, so that you’re again into the Chugach Nationwide Forest, [and] in areas you may’t get to with out simply dozens of miles of climbing. The rail goes by way of there and you actually see some superb, superb surroundings. Then you find yourself within the city of Seward, an amazing little coastal city.”

Wade says his favourite experience features a flag-stop, the place off-the-grid residents who reside alongside a 50-mile stretch of group known as Hurricane Flip wave their handkerchiefs to inform the passing prepare conductor to choose them up for a experience to the closest city of Talkeetna. Generally, Wade says, they create their canine in tow and vacationers onboard go wild.

“It is fascinating for vacationers from the decrease 48 to return and be on a prepare and notice we’re stopping [to pick up locals],” Wade says.

For a “true wilderness expertise,” Wade says the Spencer Glacier cease is improbable. The whistle cease leaves passengers in Chugach Nationwide Forest Service to hike simply over a mile out to Spencer Glacier, then later rallies them again up by tooting its horn. “If you happen to simply need an outing with the children, get on within the morning, go right down to Spencer Glacier and take a hike within the woods, and are available again within the night,” Wade says. “That’s a really typical day journey.”

These with extra time may spend ten plus days touring Inside Alaska on the railroad’s flagship prepare: The Denali Star. The prepare heads north from Anchorage on a 12-hour journey to Fairbanks, however passengers can get off and spend time at every of the stops alongside the best way in Wasilla, Talkeetna and Denali Nationwide Park.

Alaska Railroad passengers have entry to white tablecloth eating companies on all rides, besides the Hurricane Flip Practice, the place employees contend there isn’t an amazing want as a result of riders “are fairly autonomous.” Moreover, for the reason that early ‘80s, the Alaska Railroad has spearheaded a tour information program with native college districts to organize highschool college students for jobs in tourism. On the finish of the college yr, the company hires stand-out college students to serve on summer season passenger trains.

“You do not have skilled commentators on board, that is not the design,” Wade explains. “It’s the youngsters that reside in and grew up in Alaska, telling the story of Alaska, together with the historical past and how much mountains now we have and why they’re there.”

A extra full historical past of Alaska

Aaron Leggett (Dena’ina Athabascan) virtually has the Alaska Railroad working by way of his veins: he grew up alongside it in downtown Anchorage, and he’s the fourth era in his household to have labored for the company.

Leggett can also be the president of the Native Village of Eklutna, the one tribe inside what’s now Anchorage’s metropolis limits, and maybe essentially the most impacted by the rise of the railroad.

When Leggett’s grandmother was born in Eklutna Village in 1933—ten years after the railroad was accomplished—Anchorage was a small city of 5,000 folks. When his mom was born greater than 20 years later, that inhabitants had grown to 90,000. By the yr Leggett was born in 1981, Anchorage’s inhabitants topped 100,000. Since then, it has practically tripled, and accounts for about 40 % of the state’s inhabitants. The extra common historical past of the railroad credit its development in build up Anchorage into the financial and political nucleus of the state, with out acknowledging the Natives that had been within the space prior.

Leggett says, on the time of the railroad’s development in 1915, about 5,000 Dena’ina folks lived all through Southcentral Alaska. That inhabitants was halved three years later when the Spanish flu touched Alaska. As we speak, the Dena’ina inhabitants nonetheless hovers at about half of what it as soon as was.

“The Spanish Flu would have hit Alaska both approach, however due to the folks right here [for the] railroad, [the flu] had a bigger impression,” Leggett says. “Had the railroad development not occurred, we in all probability wouldn’t have misplaced half our inhabitants.”

As a 17-year-old in 1999, Leggett was chosen as a summer season tour information aboard the Alaska Railroad. His scripted commentary included just about no point out of the Alaska Natives who labored on the railroad and whose inhabitants was influenced by it. “Or, if there was, it was a really stereotypical view,” he says. “It left so much to be desired.”

Since then, Leggett’s life mission has been to “change the historic narrative” round his folks.

Starting this Might, the Anchorage Museum will host an exhibition devoted to the Alaska Railroad’s centennial that can take a look at the historical past, legacy and impression of the railroad. Artifacts on show will embrace conductor ticket punches, brakeman and engineer coat buttons, a bell that was used to sign to folks {that a} prepare was beginning to transfer, and extra. The exhibition’s curator—Leggett—says he goals to extra precisely recount one of many largest occasions in Alaska within the twentieth century, and embrace Indigenous voices and perspective into the historical past. On the time of the railroad’s development, Alaska Natives weren’t but thought-about residents of america, and had been subsequently omitted of a lot of the railroad’s historical past. Though the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 enabled Alaska Native and Native Individuals the precise to vote, English literacy necessities in Alaska successfully blocked that proper till 1965.

“​​I grew up figuring out how elementary the institution of the Alaska Railroad was to the founding of Anchorage,” Leggett says. He’s additionally been invited by Alaska Railroad to talk to up-and-coming pupil tour guides about his work this spring, and recommend updates to the onboard commentary. He stated he hopes to replace the script to supply visibility to Alaska Natives, and to current the constructive outcomes the railroad has had on Alaskans—and significantly Alaska Natives—alongside the unfavorable. The railroad introduced extreme inhabitants decline to the Dena’ina folks, however it additionally offered some—together with Aaron’s father and grandfather—with secure careers.

“Utilizing the a hundredth anniversary of the railroad to inform a extra full historical past of Alaska is what I am enthusiastic about,” Leggett says.