Re: WP&Y railway being sold to Carnival Corporation

Chris Webster Wrote:
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> $290 million does seems like a lot for a narrow
> gauge railroad, but they're also getting parking
> spaces for cruise ships.
>

If you think about it, the White Pass & Yukon is really the modern-day equivalent of a trolley park, owned and operated by a transportation company for the amusement of its passengers. It's the most heavily patronized tourist railroad in North America, but without the captive cruise ship business, would likely be the least heavily patronized. Folks who think that Chama is remote need to make a visit to Skagway.

For those who have never been, Skagway is a very unique place. Only a few hundred people actually live there. Go there between October 1 and May 1 and you can walk down the middle of State Street every morning and nothing much moves. It is directly reachable from the US only by boat or by air. Or, you can fly to White Horse and drive roughly 100 mi. south on the Klondike Highway. It has relatively few services. The nearest Home Depot is in White Horse. If you get sick and need a doctor, you need to travel to Juneau. Most of the residents have medivac insurance. It takes a special kind of person to live there. People who come pouring off cruise ships in the summer never get a feel for what Skagway is really like.

/Kevin Madore