Gentlemen...
I've just returned from an exceptionally interesting visit to the Hamilton Construction shop north of Seattle, where new cars for the WP&Y are being manufactured. An early surprise during the visit was to learn that Jeff Hamilton, owner of the company, is the nephew of Fred Hamilton - who was for many years the advertising manager for Kalmbach Publications. Because I was doing considerable advertising in MR in the 1980's and 1990's, I got to know Fred fairly well, and met him at NMRA conventions. Although he is no longer with Kalmbach, Fred is still in the industry (with Northwest Short Line) and comes to the Narrow Gauge Conventions. I am convinced that the welcome I got at the Construction company shop was partially due to my friendship with Fred.
Before going into details about the WP&Y cars, I want to explain one thing I learned on this visit. Hamilton Construction is primarily a contractor on civil engineering projects: highways, harbors, railroad bridges and culverts, and so forth. The railrcar construction work is a very small (5%?) part of the company's activity. I got the impression that Jeff is a closet railfan: his father is a steam locomotive engineer on the WP&Y, and his grandfather was, as well. Living in Skagway, with that sort of a family, must certainly cause one to be railroad oriented. But, I want to emphasize, Jeff is the ultimate businessman. During my visit, he was on the cell phone about half the time, even at lunch. In my opinion, he would not do the railcar construction for a microsecond, if it was not - at least - paying its way.
I'd not been following the status of the WP&Y closely, just knew it was doing well. But, I had no idea of how well. The railroad will likely carry over 250,000 passengers this year. It now has 67 (yes, sixty seven) passenger cars in service, with one more shipped out today, and three more under construction. If I recall correctly, Jeff said they would build another three this year, and expect to build six more next year. The WP&Y trains normally have eighteen cars, and two MU'd diesel locomotives. Most trips are White Pass summit excursions, which take about 3.5 hours and cost $82. Other trains run to Lake Bennett, and service to Carcross is planned. The incredible success of the railroad is due to the fact that all the cruise ships offering tours of Alaska's inside passage come into Skagway. The trains meet the boats at the dock, which is just an unbeatable arrangement. I guess, but do not know, that the train ride is included with most cruise ship packages.
Well, I was mightily impressed with the cars under construction. I was very fortunate in that the one to be shipped today, Saturday, June 2, was virtually finished. The carpeting was being installed on Friday, and detail painting was being done. So, I got to see everything from bare frames to the finished product. Unfortunately, as I was particularly interested in seeing them, there were no trucks at the site. Jeff said they had already been shipped to Skagway. The truck design was described in detail for me, and I expect to get a photo in a week or two. Patterns were made from a wooden truck built in the 1890's. Today, the frames are cast in steel. Roller bearings are used. The trucks weigh 8,700 # per pair, complete with axles, wheels, springs, and brakes. According to Charlie Givens (formerly of the Train Shop, Santa Clara, California), who rode the White Pass last year, the trucks are quite nice looking. Jeff said he would be happy to sell a pair to the C&TS RR for evaluation.
Jeff and I spent quite a bit of time toying with ideas about cars for the C&TS RR. In his opinion, cars of roughly the same size could be built much lighter than the WP&Y cars. My explanation that double heading steam locomotives on the grade out of Chama adds considerably to the railroad's operating expense was not a problem for him to understand. We cannot MU the damn things, and our maintenance costs are much larger that those for the diesels. (Incidentally, the White Pass has bought back many of the big Alco diesels it had sold to central or south American railroads some years ago. I've always thought that these were very handsome machines. If you didn't know, they are the prototypes of the LGB White Pass locomotive models.) Jeff had looked into building the White Pass cars out of aluminum, and found it would provide a very substantial weight reduction. Unfortunately, it would increase the materials cost considerably ($12,000 for the frame alone), and the White Pass management did not want to bear the expense of the necessary design modifications. The cars being built today weigh 33,000# in working order (that is, with water and heater fuel, but not passengers). My gut feeling is that we could build cars weighing in the range of 20 to 25 thousand pounds, without compromising safety or tracking reliability.
Some of the obvious opportunities for weight reduction are, of course, in the structure. But also, the WP&Y cars use a large amount of 3/4" plywood in the floors, walls (both exterior and interior), and ends. (The wood veneer used as the finishing material is bonded to the plywood.) Aluminum honeycomb could take the place of the heavy plywood.
Well, in my next post on this subject, I'll review the details of the White Pass car construction. To conclude this post, I just want to say how pleasant it was to take the train from Portland (Oregon) to Seattle, and on north. Most of the trains in this corridor use Talgo equipment, which I had never ridden previously. It is neat stuff, low profile, quite comfortably outfitted, and smooth riding. The one-axle per car arrangement is fascinating. Although my present tentative design for new C&TS RR cars has conventional two-axle trucks, I'm going to also work up a Talgo type design. Although it is extremely unlikely that the RGRPC would go for such a design, it would be amusing to argue that the Rio Grande might have adopted such an approach if it had stayed in the narrow gauge passenger business. And, the weight saving would be immense.
Bob Keller
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