Re: Weight - physical plant and standard gauge

Rumors have always abounded about the White Pass.

One that sticks out is the oft talked about but never accomplished extension from White Horse to a town about 110 miles north where the White Pass would interchange with a proposed British Columbia Railway extension. In order to receive government funding from the Canadians, the White Pass was to be standard gauged.

When the major up grade to the physical plant was done in 1969, there was track realignment and bridge replacement work done. The best known example of this was the new bridge, alignment, and tunnel at Dead Horse Gulch.

There are only two major wooden bridge structures that I remember from my trip there nine years ago. The famous 15-C trestle and the swing bridge at Carcross. The rest of the bridges are now heavy steel bridges built for anything the narrow gauge could haul and the possibility of the line being standard gauged.

Again, this was rumored and I don't know if the new bridges could actually withstand the stresses of heavy standard gauge rolling stock. But the White Pass as it currently exists is a modern physical plant, it is not a strip of rust through a mountain range. When it shut down in the early 1980s it was hauling 70-80+ car container freight trains up and down 4% grades with trains occasionally hitting the 100 car mark. Units were m.u.'d in groups of five as a common practice.

Also, the recent tie replacement program utilized standard gauge ties in many locations, fueling some rumors that management wanted to standard gauge the line and by using the standard gauge ties could do so by shifting one rail over.

Don't you just love rumors?