Railfanning the White Pass & Yukon Route
Shadowmeboy
This video captured a few minutes of the busiest narrow gauge tracks in North America, Skagway Junction. I was working as the yard conductor on this day and if you see a white van driving up and down the tracks, that's me, along with one of our dispatchers (Tanya) who was tagging along to see how we routed trains during the busiest time of day. I saw this guy and asked him if he wanted to ride around to see more of the switching but he politely declined. At any rate, considering most White Pass footage is condensed to 15 seconds on TikTok or Instagram, I thought I'd share here what may be of interest to those who would be on a narrow gauge railroad forum these days.
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2:49, No. 33 (3001N) is departing the Ore dock after picking up passengers from the depot who bought tickets independently of a cruise ship. Note that the first car on the train is 402 and its empty. It was deadheading a trip so it would be staged to be on the rear, with passengers, on the next departure at 1:00 PM. This saves switch moves for this crew throughout the day. Immediately following is the second section (3006N) from Long Siding. This train will have to delay its arrival back in Skagway to 12:59 PM, to correlate with the 8:00 No. 31 leaving from the same location. (see the post about 2024 White Pass questions) This train will be right behind the preceding one until it gets to Glacier southbound, where it will then have to start killing some time. Once this train clears the junction, the depot lead will be thrown red for the next inbound train.
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6:10, we see that the next train has already arrived. The road power was cut off up in the yard, and while it loops itself, the yard engine is now shoving the train to the Broadway dock. Note that the depot lead is already red. As this train shoves down to the Broadway dock, the following section is arriving in the yard and we anticipate the move by lining the north switch at the junction green, which then lines the second section (3003S) into the parallel track of the depot lead. When everything works right, every White Pass crew knows what's called "train magic", by occupying both tracks in the crossing at the same time. You'll notice how many people are waiting at the crossings. It just works better to maintain occupancy in a situation like this to keep people from running in between trains.
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13:00 (3003) is about to shove out of the depot and then head for the Long Siding (Railroad Dock). The yard engineer (104) uses the crossing occupancy to his advantage and hides out in the clear in the Anvil pocket, which is the 3 cars of clearance between the diamond and the Anvil lead switch that was visible in the beginning of the video. Once the train shoves down towards the Railroad dock ("back track" as termed by the crews) the 104 will hide out for the couple of minutes, clearing the 3002 that has looped and is ready to couple back to its train on the Broadway dock. Once 3002 clears, 104 will hide on a yard track and leave a route available for the crew with the 3003 to loop their entire train and return to Long Siding without ever having to touch a switch. Variable switches are incredibly efficient.
John Hillier
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2023 08:15PM by John C.
