Urban Alaska: The ARR APU Spur

[Dave Schneider]

Chuck Geiger and I have been discussing some ideas for a small switching layout over in his SD&AE Trading Post thread and I thought it would be good to give this discussion its own thread for those who might be interested in some Urban railroading Alaska style.

Part of this is reposted from that thread, but I have supplemented it with some new links.
I have always thought that the ARR APU spur in Anchorage would make a nice little switching layout. An MP-15, a handful of cars, a couple of switches.

It is located on the lower right of this map.


Here is some more information on the spur.
http://www.alaskarails.org/industries/APU.html
http://www.alaskarails.org/industries/ak-millnfeed.html
There are a couple of warehouses that no longer have service the could be added if interested.

Here is the west end of the spur:


And the east end:


The most interesting building is the Alaska Mill and Feed complex.
The "Feed Spur"


The "Fertilizer Spur"


I am not great at making links to Google Maps, but the general location for those who are interested is  61.222433°, -149.854668°.

Across the street from AM&F is the offices of the Anchorage Opera. Just remember, the opera isn't over until the biker chick sings! Don't ask...I have no idea why!


A nice collection of ops photos from RailPictures.Net
http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?location=APU%20Spur

This is a cool little bit of track, and would look great in N or HO.
Best wishes, Dave

[John]

ARR just looks like one of those RRs that could be modeled in the basement ..

[Dave Schneider]

ARR just looks like one of those RRs that could be modeled in the basement ..

The only problem is there aren't very many basements around here! It is a cool line with an interesting mix of equipment and operations.

Best wishes, Dave

[John]

The only problem is there aren't very many basements around here! It is a cool line with an interesting mix of equipment and operations.

Best wishes, Dave

Well, Ok .. big Igloo then

http://www.denalisights.com/images/Igloo1.jpg

[Philip H]

Dave,
Is the APU spur the one that leads to the old passenger station?  If so I walked most of that when I was there last year.  I also remember the warehouse that the Anchorage ReStore is in (across from the yard) a building that used to be rail served.

[Dave Schneider]

Hi Philip,

Not sure what you mean by the Old Passenger Station. The only one that I know of is this one, and it is still in use. I guess it's old though and probably what you meant.



As for the location, I have sketched a couple of things on this image.
The Red Line is the Passenger main, the Yellow Line is the APU Spur, and the Green Line is part of the Ship Creek Trail. Maybe this is what you were walking on as it is much more pleasant than walking along side of the streets. Ship Creek is a popular salmon fishing stream for the Urban Angler. Since the fish spend most of their life at sea and only a day or two in the river, there is no worry about catching them along side a rail yard.

The geologist in me would be remiss if I didn't include a landslide scarp from the 1964 earthquake, shown in Blue! It just shows up so well in the image.



Best wishes, Dave