I'm currently working as conductor on the Crew 3 bid, Sunday-Friday with potentially three trips a day between Skagway and White Pass. I have the best engineer I could ask for and I couldn't be more elated about my brakeman. I told her a couple days ago, "these are the good old days", because we've been super busy with 14+ car trains and tons of passengers. It's busy and way more fun to keep the operation running on time for our usual train meets... with the newer sidings being utilized. It takes a lot of effort to depart on time when you are essentially loading a train with the atmosphere of a mall, but that makes it fun.
Anyway, not much is posted on here about White Pass so I thought it would be interesting to write a bit of a "day in the life" post. This year we've been getting called about 90 minutes before our first departure unless we are a three turn day, when another crew loads the train for us and we are called 15-30 minutes before departure. Normally I'll get to work about 10 minutes early, get my yard line up, operating bulletin, and daily cheat sheet (which is essentially a manifest but for the whole operation so we can see who is doing what) before heading up to the dispatch office to get my first round of papers. Then we'll be taken down to the train with the train operations manager and get the train ready. At that point the train crew will meet up with the passenger agents and dock rep who will liaison between the cruise ship and the railroad and organize our passengers to board. The goal is to start our boarding time 30 minutes before departure, making sure the correct end platforms are opened, the PA is working, stoves are lit to warm the cars if the weather deems it necessary, etc.
The train sets are brought from the coach yard to the various loading platforms earlier in the morning by the yard job. I haven't been able to work this job in a few years because I don't have the seniority but it was fun work. The downside was getting up at 3 AM and washing locomotives. That crew usually gets to shove about 60 cars down to the dock before the summit turn crews arrive, which expedites the time to get the train sets ready.
Once a train is ready to load, the conductor will call the dock rep on the "little radio" and tell them they can send passengers for boarding. I'm grateful I worked at Disney early in my life because White Pass trains are open seating, and working parade audience control and in the Disney watercraft transportation department helped me see a few solutions to our boarding process, which can be in excess of 500 passengers within 20 minutes. Outside of an emergency or other unusual situation, loading trains is the most stressful part of the job for the operating and passenger department crew members.
White Pass trains don't operate in "fleets" like they did up until 2019. Now we have hourly departures depending on demand. This requires trains to leave on time to make their written meets while working up and down the hill. The current roster of conductors are very proud to efficiently board trains and get them out on time. Once on board, the conductor and brakeman will work towards each other collecting tickets, while monitoring the "big radio" for their engineer to switch from the yard channel to the road channel. This is all happening on a very full train with passengers from a wide range of language groups, which adds pressure while collecting tickets. In addition, the dock reps usually request that the crew have all of the tickets to be transferred off the train before the train leaves the yard in Skagway. This is done while the passenger agent narrating the trip on the trains PA system is going over safety announcements and asking passengers to have their tickets presented, so it is a very critical few minutes for the conductor and brakeman. 300+ tickets in 7-10 minutes on a moving train with another person talking over you is a lot!
All said and done, the crew can settle into the trip. After tickets are collected the conductor will allow passengers onto the vestibules to enjoy the scenery. The train crew will also call in their passenger count to the dispatcher when they have it at the first opportunity. I'll usually meet up with my brakeman for a few minutes and sip some coffee and we'll talk about what we've seen on the train so far (equipment, passengers, etc.) before working the opposite direction of each other through the train with those mental notes in mind.
The trip from Shops to White Pass/Divide is around 1:05 - 1:15, give or take, traffic on a slow day. A busy day can take about 1:30 to get to the top. That said, the old days of fleet trains were always a 3:30 - 4:15 roundtrip depending on how fast your crew was at switching. In some ways I really miss the old 3 train saw-by at White Pass, but we have a loop now with a remote dial switch and its here to stay. Going back to the crew, the brakeman will be on the head end to set retainers, and I am most often at the "south" or rear of the train to watch for us to clear the main at Divide, call in our track release and request a complete time for our southbound clearance. White Pass operates on Canadian operating rules and we use OCS clearances instead of track warrants, which are in many ways the same thing.
Heading downhill. The brakeman will set retainers just south of White Pass when we tip over and the engineer starts to bunch up the train. We use a blended braking technique with dynamic brakes doing most of the work and air brakes essentially controlling the speed (when everything works right). The brakeman usually hangs out on the "south/head end" of the train just in case the engineer wants more or fewer retainers. It doesn't usually happen but it's good form. On board we'll usually meet back up for a few minutes, talk about the day, and then when we get to Denver we'll split up and prep the train for arrival. Denver is just shy of 6 miles from town, and only 1 mile into the mountain grade so the brakeman will head towards the front of the train and start knocking retainers down and go about handling special needs passengers in the wheelchair lift car.
Once we arrive back in Skagway, the conductor and engineer will release the track to the dispatcher, and then the crew will switch back over to the yard channel on the radio. This is where things are very fluid. Generally the dispatcher will tell the crews arriving back what their plan is for unloading passengers, miles before the train gets back to town. However, with 500+ people, more often than not we have passengers from different cruise ships or tour groups. This has an effect on whether or not the train will go directly back to the dock it originated from, whether it goes into the depot first to meet with busses for those tours, or if the yard crew will assist the incoming train to get their engine off the south end of the train and looped and ready for the next run. (If I was gonna foam White Pass, it would be time lapses of the yard crew keeping the railroad lubricated with trains coming in and out and engines being looped.)
And thats that. More or less. We do that two or three times a day. It's extremely hectic. A three trip day is about 125 miles for us. I absolutely love working here just as I loved working for the Durango & Silverton, it's just different brain cells that I use every day. White Pass is probably the busiest narrow gauge railroad on the planet and I'm proud to play my part along with the best crew and coworkers I could ask for.
I'm curious what questions you all might have.
John Hillier
