The great thing about Alaska is that you can combine fishing and railfanning in one weekend. I caught these in Portage on the way back to Anchorage after a successful dip netting trip on the Kenai River (22 red salmon). Portage is the location where the mainline branches off to Whittier, the year-round port and car ferry connection to Prince Rupert, BC and the rest of North America. Whittier was built during WWII as a secret port...the weather is so typically awful they figured the Japanese would never be able to find it. The weather in Portage this last weekend was lovely, 50 F, 20 mph wind, sideways rain and fog....gotta love July.
A quartet of GP-40-2, two in the modern blue and yellow scheme, and two in the old school black and yellow (which I really like) was here powering a ballast train.
A cool ballast spreader. Some of the maintenance equipment has a crew applied logo of Dirt Mercs painted on the side (seen here by the ARR logo).
While I was there I was surprised by a passenger train headed around the wye to Whittier. This train was hauling cruise ship passengers in private cars. This would have been a cooler shot if the power pole hadn't been in the way.
And finally, one of my favorites, a flat car dedicated to "Raft Service". This car hauls whitewater rafts down the line to Grandview (on the line to Seward). Passengers take an RDC type of car, you get out at a whistlestop, get into a raft and "float" your way back to road system.
Best wishes, Dave
