My visit to the WP&Y last week.

Yes, yet another White Pass thread. I've just returned from this incredible operation. What an experience. If you ever get a chance to visit it, do it! It is well worth it. It literally was hard to keep track of all the train operations as there was almost constant action throughout the railroad. (Reminded me some of the U.P. in Wyoming with the train frequency.) At some point I'll post photos.

A few details from our trip. There were an estimated 13,000 passengers in town from four cruise ships on a beautiful, warm sunny day. The positive word of mouth we kept hearing as THE thing to do in Skagway was great to hear. There were six trains running on the line that day with at least three of those running three round trips each. As mentioned elsewhere they'll do half a million passengers in essentially four months. They have more demand than capacity and two new units will be coming from Illinois before the start of next season. They need additional passenger cars as well. I felt lucky that we had three of the Alcos on our train as it sounds like they'll be the first to be retired. We were amazed by the precision scheduling and automatic switches as the trains played follow the leader around the loop at Summit and back down. We passed train after train, each one full and its great that they let you stand outside on the platforms. 73 looks incredible and you can still smell the fresh paint on it. Unfortunately it was a scheduled day off for it. I can't say enough about how wonderful the employees I came in contact with were, while under what has to be stressful circumstances with that many people.

Jim Barton