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The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad

1. Origin and Construction

The clouds covering the mountains and the son of Steel Wool Silver, hung on the Lynn Canal, near the historic town of Skagway, Alaska, in itself the source of thousands of researchers began their 45-mile walks above the summit of White Pass toward the Klondike gold fields in the Yukon in Canada in 1897 and 1898. The crowd continued to infiltrate the area of today's ships also left Seattle, but all landed in one of the many day cruises to dock a short distance.

Overcrowding passengers of the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad Depot platform of concrete poured in from many trains, including the Fraser River, British Columbia. For my part, follow the path of gold seekers from the summit of White Pass, located 2865 meters above the sea at the Canadian border, but could do the path that had been built to replace the track on foot down and create a travel demand created by the historic event.

The forthcoming trip actually had its origin about 110 years. Prospectors looking for gold along the Yukon River has yielded its first harvest until 1896, when George Carmack and two Indian Skookum Jim and Dawson Charlie, a few flakes of gold discovered in Bonanza Creek in the Yukon, even if it had been another year before the world was alerted to the discovery at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published his now famous title of "Gold! GOLD! GOLD! "At its July 17, 1897 will be published after his landing from 68 juvenile steam Portland to Seattle, Washington. The promise wealth, seemingly instantly, easily, with deprivation of the Depression, caused a historical event involving 100,000 players and eventually of Alaska and the Yukon itself.

With the exception of season steamer service on the Yukon River and the construction of roads and rail is not permitted in Alaska until Congress passed the Homestead Act 1898, there were no internal infrastructure to facilitate access by the Stampeders to the Klondike gold fields.

Yukon itself, the broad area of low population density of land beyond the 60th parallel north-western Canada, which shares a border with Alaska and win just its own slogan pic "larger than life" is a varied topography, but the rugged terrain of aggregates insurmountable, treeless plains, boreal forests, mountains, glaciers, lakes and rivers reflecting mirror and inhabited by the people of First Nations Canadian and abundant wildlife. Because of its high latitude, it experiences more than 20 hours of daylight in summer, but less five in winter, replaced instead, by the northern lights known as auroras. Apart from the main "cities", most communities are accessible only by seaplane or dogsled.

The Yukon's history is, in essence, the Gold Rush, and traces its way to five places significant both the United States and Canada.

The first, Seattle, Washington, had served as a bridge input in the Yukon. Billed as the "owner fields of gold, which sold supplies and equipment stored within ten feet deep sidewalks store collecting 25 million dollars in sales in early 1898, and was the starting point of the water route across the Gulf of Alaska to San Miguel, then down the Yukon River to Dawson City. Though high tariffs, few people could afford, all tickets had been exhausted.

Dyea and the Chilkoot Trail, the second place, expecting a slower, more insidious, alternative route by road 33-mile Chilkoot connects the coast of Alaska to the headwaters of Canada Yukon River.

Skagway, Alaska, the third place, Dyea quickly replaced the "Gateway to the Klondike Highway to White Pass his navigable, although ten miles longer than the Chilkoot Trail, was 600 feet smallest gain. Located on the northern tip of Alaska's Inside Passage, Skagway, now important port of call cruise itineraries in Alaska, Alaska became the first city incorporated in 1900 with a large population of 3117, the first non-natives was Captain William Moore, who discovered the White Pass route to Canada. Metemorphosed clearly a village store field points with a timber formwork sport shops, walk, dance halls, gambling houses, and about 80 bars in the four months between August and December 1897 as Stampeders result of accumulation outside of steamboats in the harbor, soon turned into a city of 20,000 inhabitants, who reside temporarily grounded the White Pass Trail and the Klondike gold fields themselves.

At Lake Bennett, the fourth location, 30,000 Stampeders awaiting the spring thaw, construction 7124 whipsawn green wooden boats and the launch of its fleet of May 29, 1898, before going to fight the Whitehorse Rapids on the Yukon River to Dawson City.

Dawson City itself, the location of meetings, had been the site of the first discovery gold flakes and started as a small island between the rivers Klondike and Yukon have hitherto occupied by First Nations, but it exploded in the largest city in Western Canada, Winnipeg and north of Vancouver, with a maximum of 40,000 gold seekers covering an area ten kilometers on banks. Thirty-cords of wood is used to record routes through permafrost in the mines.

The White Pass Trail Skagway, quickly destroyed by overexploitation, the cries of the necessity of replacing the line of rail. Seeking to exploit the demand for safe transport, fast and reliable from the port to the Yukon, Thomas Tancredo, a representative of investors in London, and Michael J. Henry, entrepreneur railroad, had suggested that line and After a chance meeting overnight, presented the initial plans for the road.

The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad Company, established in April 1898, consisted of three companies: Pacific and Arctic Railway and Navigation Company, in charge of the White Pass Skagway-rail section, British Columbia Yukon Railway, whose division of the Canadian border at White Pass linked to the provincial boundary between British Columbia and Yukon Territory and the British Yukon Railway, whose track ran from the border with the Yukon in Whitehorse.

The four directors of the cross top with H. Samuel Graves, President, CE Hawken, chief engineer, John Hislop, assistant engineer, and Michael J. Henry, Entrepreneur.

Construction 10 million euros, three feet wide, railway narrow gauge, which allows greater than the standard curves measuring the haves and the engineered barriers assuming proportions hitherto unimaginable, was launched May 28, 1898, and involved ten foot wide road bed, a gain of nearly 3,000 feet above sea level on a stretch of 20 kilometers, cliffs established track, 16 degree turns, tunnels, bridges, cold and snow and 450 tons of explosives.

Built into three sections, from Skagway to White Pass, White Pass to Carcross, Whitehorse and Carcross, the first was the hardest, although his first seven miles of track had been completed in two months only. On July 21, 1898, after the first locomtove had been delivered, an excursion train operated for dignitaries visiting for the first time, throwing three flat cars with wooden benches. Two months later, in September, the degree of monitoring report view 17 miles from Skagway, but a discovery of gold in the Atlin attracted workers most remote, complete vital for the selection of necessary and shovels for the project. At mile 18.7, the deep V-shaped, 215 feet high canyon can be connected to a steel bridge of 400 meters built cantilevered three hinged arches.

The first train to operate at White Pass was nine months after construction had started February 20 1899.

Another milestone was still five months later, June 6, when he arrived at Bennett in the 40.6 mile tracks, liaising intermodal first with small steamboats that ply the lakes and rivers in the Miles Canyon and Whitehorse Rapids. About 20 miles later, the track is came to Lewis Lake.

With the final nail driven in Whitehorse, Yukon, June 8, 1900, the second of three sections were completed, allowing travel by train to Carcross, British Columbia, for the first time. This became the only land route between two cities in the South Klondike Highway was built 78 years later.

With the installation of rails on the bridge at Carcross, July 29, 1900, and driving the last spike at 17:30 local time, the second three sections were completed, thus achieve the White Pass & Yukon Route Railway, whose track has been extended to 110 miles of the United States in Canada that is to 20.4 miles from Alaska, ran 32.3 miles through British Columbia, 58.1 miles and ran for the Yukon Territory.

Skagway has quickly become the "Gate of the White Pass Rush" and became the "Gateway to the Yukon.

2. Serving

The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad has not only been an engineering feat, but a healthy activity, with many effects of evolution. Initially, transport equipment mining, materials, supplies and tools for running north, has been copper ore to the smelter in Washington, my back In 1908, the product later replaced by money lead in 1923, which continued to grow until 1970. In fact, the freight is a proportion growing sources of revenue until 1918, when the depression had exercised its effects and then increase again, reaching 21,450 tons in 1940.

Perhaps the biggest increase in demand occurred in August 1942 when the U.S. Army began construction of the Alcan Highway, taking the daily tonnage from 200 to 2,000, and 1 October this year, the railway has been fully leased to 770 U.S. Army operational railway battalion, which re-equipped with staff if necessary, locomotives and rolling stock. In fact, every time the most volume, Following a temporary transfer amounted to 34 trains daily operations collectively, more than 2,000 tonnes of cargo per day or 47,506 tonnes per months.

The application has been created by the crude oil refinery in Whitehorse and the pipeline that connects to Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories North-West.

The modernization of its equipment increasingly obsolete after the war, the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad bought new locomotives and rolling stock to replace the traditional steam engines with diesel-electric in 1954. The operation of steam last came ten years later in 1964.

In 1955, the first embedded operating in the world, intermodal container service from Vancouver to Whitehorse, where the first goal design of container, the Clifford J. Rogers, road freight in the port of Skagway flatcars railroad for permanent transfer semi-trailers using the road Alaska.

To meet the transport demands of lead-zinc and free operation of the mine pit in the range of Anvil Yukon boarded the train major modernization program in 1969, the acquisition of heavier locomotives of greater capacity, 50 tons in cars, ore and container, reconstruction of bridges and tunnels, building a store in Skagway, and dredging of offshore fishing pier.

The passenger was also taken into account in its revenue base, about 16,000 have already been made in 1901. During the 1970s, passengers transported during the day and ore concentrates in the night, hosted on trains from 80 to 100 vehicles long.

The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad was the primary means of transportation in northern British Columbia and Yukon for 84 years, from 1898 to 1982, when his building was the mine Anvil closed and eliminated the need. Because demand was still not sufficient to maintain cost effective services, which ceased operations At that time, ending a long history whose party had been illuminated by the gold rush in 1898.

However, a flame invisible continued to sparkle in the subsequent years of darkness. Gradually, the growing demand, stimulated by the arrival of cruise Skagway, the fact that the passenger train in 1988, season, re-opening service, the centennial year, resulting in an annual list of passengers 39,000. Both the increased number of vessel operations and its increasing size, the annual total to more than 100,000 passengers in 1991 and 290,000 in 1998, all in a short five months of the season. In 2006, carried over 430,000 passengers per year.

As self-proclaimed "Gateway to the Yukon" and "Railway built Golden, White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad had been designated as international civil engineering historic landmark in 1994, one only 36 World design, including the Panama Canal, to do so because of obstacles to overcome during construction, and today is the only international railway narrow gauge still operating in North America.

Its current fleet consists of two steam engines, restored 1947 Baldwin 2-8-2 Mokado designated Engine No. 73 and in 1907 Baldwin 2-8-0 originally built for rail and motor designated Number 69, 20 locomotives Diesel-electric, made in 1950, General Electric and 1960, the rate of the ALCO, and 80 restored and replica passenger coaches, the oldest dating from 1883.

3. At the White Pass Summit

The original White Pass Depot, wooden, double-rail station with two floors to the tracks on Broadway where he stood, was built in 1899 and was attached to the Railway Administration Building the following year. After its closure in 1969, when he was taken by the Council for National Parks Service, they built a new structure of the second floor and Spring streets, and with the increase in passenger numbers, added a second apartment in 1997.

After the street-integrated narrow-gauge tracks in 1245 beyond the White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad maintenance and restoration history, my son, 12-car train, pulled by three diesel-electric locomotives, along with river rock embedded shallow Skagway below the dark green fir the mountains Tongass carpet National Forest, which begins its slow rise in the level of 3.9 per cent of the runway.

The six yards beyond the track coach ease of maintenance were used for the rolling stock of overnight storage, service and cleanliness.

Curve to right mile 5.8, the train from 402 feet, crossed the Middle Fork of the Skagway River, near Denver Glacier, which was marked by the passage of red and white car Yukon Route Railroad Tail available for rental overnight by the U.S. Forest Service.

Re-curve to the left, at mile 6.9, the train passed Rocky Point, offering spectacular views of Mt. Smith and glacier carved canyon. Skagway and now small armada of cruise ships has been reduced to miniature proportions, dwarfs by mountains without snow-covered trees rising above them.

Clifton Station, at an altitude of 638 feet long with 792 meters of track side had served as home of the composite section foremen, sectionmen, and cooks, but had retired in 1960 after rigorous monitoring and improvement of the road were eliminated its need. His name had emanated from the ledge of granite weighing on him.

Bridal Veil Falls, at mile 11.5, fell 6,000 feet in a series of steps curve, a "man" white, frothy water "jump" the dark green pine-way to mt. Cleveland and MT. The parents Clifford Glacier. The quilt of clouds torn to reveal pieces of sky blue.

The slim silhouette barely visible from the train Fraser in 1230, also drew three yellow and green diesel, electric motors, can be seen kissing the forehead mountain and in higher education.

The tracks are raised in a 90-degree right turn. In the season of Henry, who had been named after a White Pass & Yukon Route contractor rail, the cargo was transported by a horse tram parked charge steep in most tents includes City of White Pass in the valley for a final delivery of the summit.

Shortly before reaching 1871 meters from the station's 14.0 mile glacier, trails are doubled, then tripled briefly. The station itself had been used at home for the crew of the section of rail that had kept the track and recover the steam engines of water for their hard climbs.

Most platform Box Canyon meets the snow slide spring which led to frequent flows of rocks, gravel and vegetation with them.

From glacier crossing Bridge Station, the train, with 12 channels unit vintage cars now slipped behind him, beat deep, dark green mountains, covered with hemlock and west coast pine, as evidenced through the windows of the car to the left. gave way to gray, slightly covered mountain snow clearance in front, their jagged peaks partially masked by the sweetness of the marshmallow puffs of cloud resting on top. A cable had been distributed the gun portal to the silver mine on the other side.

The two parallel mountain, descending into the ravine below 1000 meters, has formed a velvet green "V", whose base has been cut by the court, now River "tiny light blue.

Crossing the trestle woods at mile 16, the train plunges into the long tunnel of 250 meters in the mountain, the chasm of Glacier Gorge disappear as horizontal beams of light projected on the granite walls gradually flickered in the darkness at the center, leaving one dead, perceptionless to cancel the inhibition of respiration.

Inspiration Point, at mile 17.0 and 2400 feet above sea level, once again, offering a spectacular view of Mt. Smith and the Chilkat Mountains, while the train passed the junction leading to the cantilever bridge is no longer used, which was built in 1901 and was also the design world's highest at the time.

Ingestion of news by the impenetrable, meaning that challenge the darkness of the 675-mile foot tunnel to 18.8, the three locomotives, 12-coach punched through the mountains, a clear track in circumvention of the suspension bridge before 1969, which was closed.

The Valley multiple layers, wrapped in deep green, and then extended on the left side.

Reduce speed to a crawl and made its way through steep rock walls that seemed to scrap against windows outside coach, the train has passed the pin sub-Arctic to 2865 feet White Pass Summit, named after the Canadian Minister of the Interior Thomas White in 1887 and located in the United States-Canada border, the narrow three-fold parties. The engine groaned softly brakes and 15 channels of moving the unit left in the cold, stiff and thin.

The silence, in contrast striking with the constant hum at its source, Skagway, almost cried the closed chapter of history that has resulted in rail engineering, gold miners who had been there, but no longer. Over there was police at the summit of White Pass, which had reached the rise thousands of researchers, overloaded his year the value of supplies and equipment necessary for survival in the far north into Canada and to continue his expedition to the Klondike gold fields, hoping to gain wealth. Of the estimated 40,000 people were running, only ten percent had actually discovered gold and only a few hundred have actually achieved their dream of becoming rich.

For others, the journey itself, not the destination, have demonstrated the value end of the adventure. Like life, the ultimate "goal" remains difficult, sometimes it seems that the path taken to a destination that offers better rewards stations. However, without waiting for destination or goal, it is unlikely that the trip will take place at all. In any event, the gold rush was a life lesson.

Disconnect and after 1296 feet long spur line, the three locomotives reconnected to the (now front) of the train by pulling the white collar and the beginning of his way diminish gradually retracing mountain in Skagway. During the journey return, I hope that the lesson ...

About the Author

A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude BA Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, and the AAS Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York – College of Technology at Farmingdale. Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and devised and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center. A freelance author, I have written some 70 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, having principally focused on aviation and travel, and I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form. I am a writer for Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York. I have made some 350 lifetime trips by air, sea, rail, and road.

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