From Boeries Burkhart
Following is a facsimile of an article that appeared in the June 1947 Brotherhood of Locomotive and Enginemen's Magazine
By GENERAL CARL R. GRAY, Jr.
Vice President, Chicago and North Western Railway
Copy of only the WHite Pass section.
We had not been in active service and in training very long when we found
that we really had to go to work. I will always remember, I believe, the
exact wording of the radiogram I got from General Somervell directing me to
proceed by first priority to White Horse, Yukon Territory, and there to take
over by lease and to expand for military purposes the White Pass and Yukon
Route, running from Skagway on the coast to White Horse, Yukon Territory. I
doubt if they had any idea whatsoever of what they were really putting us up
against. In the first place, Canada is like Texas. It doesn't like, nor does
it permit, foreign corporations to do business in its country, so I had to
sit down with the Council of Ministers in Canada to get an Order in Council
to legalize our illegal action in taking that railroad over by lease. It's a
most unusual railroad about 112 miles long. The temperature in the winter
drops down to 70 degrees below zero, the wind blows ninety miles an hour,
and the snow is so thick that you can't see a rail's length in front of the
engine. We sent an operating battalion up there, the 770th, and we made
special selection of the men to go from among those who came from the
northern railroads, and who were used to snow and lots of it. Now that
railroad commercially, had always shut down for the winter, and at no time
since it was built in 1902 had it ever hauled more than 15,000 tons in any
year. However, Uncle Sam wanted and needed 45,000 tons a month and I am
delighted to say that he got it. We constantly built up from the time we
took it over on October 1, 1942, operated it throughout the winter, and
reached the 45,000-ton requirement early the following spring of 1943.