Charlie Mutschler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> As noted elsewhere in this
> thread - most of the people riding the WP&Y are
> cruise ship passengers, not rail fans. The same
> applied to the Silverton. And still does.
>
>When I rode it in 1972, the WP&Y was still very
> much a freight hauler, but construction crews were
> working on a highway connection from the Alaska
> Highway to Skagway, and I wondered if the railroad
> would be competitive with trucks. What hurt was
> closure in 1982 of the large mine which generated
> a lot of the freight. Closure in the early 1980s
> looked certain and permanent. But after a brief
> dormancy, someone had the idea of running the
> train up to White Pass for the cruise ships which
> were starting to call at Skagway. It paid off.
> Handsomely. The WP&Y is the busiest narrow gauge
> in North America. Most of the passengers are
> riding for the scenery and the experience - much
> as they do for the D&S.
The White Pass had for years and years been catering to the cruise business. The Alaska cruise business expanded along with the rest of the cruise business and the railroad found a market.
When I traveled up there in 1976 the highway was under construction and the mining was still going strong. The railroad expected to lose the local transportation. But was expecting that the mining traffic would continue and the summer passenger ship passenger business would continue and it would retain the transportation of large or outsize loads that might otherwise come up the Alaska Highway.
Local transportation would be people traveling to Whitehorse for services -- when I was up there I stepped out onto the end platform when we were stopped by the shops and heard a conversation between a railroad worker on the ground and an employee who had stepped out of the next car (caboose combine). The man on the train had taken his family to see the dentist in Whitehorse. That would be a day Skagway to Whitehorse; probably a full day in Whitehorse; and then a day for the return trip. With the highway in place, the same trip could be made in a single day.
Brian Norden