AK Day 5

Written by Lindsay Korst
gngoat@gngoat.org

Alaska by Rail 2025
Special Interest Tours - Trains Magazine

Monday, September 8th
Day Five
Let's ride the Hurricane Turn!

But first a leisurely breakfast at the Base Camp Bistro buffet line.

At noon, we bussed over to Talkeetna Station. The Hurricane Turn was not scheduled to depart northbound until 1pm.

Shortly after arriving at the depot, I was surprised by another train led by ARR 4322, a ubiquitous EMD SD70MAC. How about that Alaska Flag (Big Dipper pointing to the North Star) emblazoned on it's flanks?

The big wide cab was in charge of double-decker cars from Holland America, Princess Cruises and McKinley Explorer.

GLAM SHOT #2!  Molly and Rachel mug it up for the camera.  They are the best tour guides, EVAH!

Once the cruise train left for points north, the bucolic Hurricane Turn made its approach for loading. A true local, takes-siding-for-anything, it makes all the flag stops (upon request) between Talkeetna and Hurricane, AK.

Its consist from front to rear is:

ARR 31, a former AMTRAK EMD F40PH "control cab" (unpowered).
ARR 100, ex-Union Pacific, American Car & Foundry 1961 baggage car.
ARR 521, ex-Spokane, Portland & Seattle Budd 1954 dome coach.
ARR 210, ex-Daewoo Heavy Industries 1989, Korean built, single-level coach.
ARR 3011, new 1976 EMD GP40-2 diesel locomotive (for pushing and pulling).

Thanks to these two links for helping me identify the equipment:

https://www.alaskarails.org/fp/passenger/passenger-roster.html
http://www.trainweb.org/rosters/ARR.html

Still smiling and riding the rails; a small fishing shack back in the woods; we took siding for this southbound; rolling down the river.

When we boarded the Turn, the dome area of 521 was chained off.  Strange.

After a while, I went back to investigate.  Under the dome was an informal exhibit of stuff AND it looks like two dogs are running for Mayor of Talkeetna!

Ah!  The dome restriction has been lifted.  The view is MUCH better from up here.  Baolu joined me for a while upstairs.

As we took siding, an announcement was made folks could get off to visit a local artist's gallery.  Baolu went downstairs to do so.  Lucky for me, the four teenagers who had been hogging all the front seats, also detrained.

This set up my (and 3 other guy's) meet shot with the southbound Denali Star...from a classic 1950's Budd dome!  Train Hype!

Finally, we reached the famous Hurricane Bridge.  They announced we could take pictures from the baggage car, so that's where we went.  My reflective vestibule shot turned out kinda nice, too.  Selfies and rainbows.

After "turning" (now southbound with Engineer in EMD F40PH "control cab"), we made a couple stops to look around. 

First was at the "two bridges" location.  Note "Bigfoot" in the 3rd image.  4th image is peppered with various caliber holes.

Second stop at "Curry" was to view the four-car snow plow train kept on this siding as an exhibit.

From the dome, I snapped this picture to show how well-ballasted the Alaska Railroad is (rock is plentiful with online quarries).  The entire mainline looks like this.  No weeds.  Impressive.

Back at Talkeetna, one last look at the pushing GP40-2 before we board the bus back to the Lodge.

It's getting dark and we arrive back to our room and discover our key card doesn't work.  NO ONE's key card works.  Molly to the rescue - she marched up to the front desk and got it straightened out.  Meanwhile, we all just took off for a late dinner.  Ben our motor-coach maven joined us at our table -- so we got to know him better.  Fine fellow!

Tomorrow - Touring the Talkeetna!