Re: WP&Y Derailment Photo

That's right in the White Pass Station area, where most of the line's trains turn. Difficult to believe that the train would have been running very fast at that location. Glad nobody was seriously hurt. Rolling stock can always be repaired. As another contributor put it, there are a lot of places on the White Pass where the result could have been much worse.

I am certain that the WP&YR folks have disaster plans in place to deal with this sort of thing and the potential for mass casualties. That railroad has a lot of resources ($$$) that many tourist lines can only dream of. One of the big challenges they face in the event of an accident is that there are no emergency medical facilites anywhere nearby. When I was there for the rotary run in 2011, the railroad folks told me that little Skagway does not even have a doctor, much less a hospital. The cruise ships likely have better facilites. Skagway does have a small clinic that can handle really basic stuff, but if you get really sick or badly injured, you have to go to Juneau or Whitehorse, and probably by helicopter or airplane. Many who live there have medivac insurance for that reason. The lack of nearby facilites pretty much forces the railroad folks to think through a lot of really tough what-ifs.

I've been in two NG derailments in the past year. Both were very low-speed accidents, but when it is happening, it is still pretty scary. There's alot of energy there.

/Kevin