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Written by Lindsay Korst
gngoat@gngoat.org
Alaska by Rail 2025
Special Interest Tours - Trains Magazine
Wednesday, September 10th
Day Seven
Anchorage to Whittier to Alyeska Resort.
Groan. Another early start. Good buffet and omelet station at the Hilton,
however. Bags
outside door @ 7:45am. We are riding the Glacier Discovery train to Whittier. The
Anchorage Alaska Railroad passenger station is PACKED with humanity, to the point you
can't move around.
It was remarkably sunny outside so I got me some station pictures. Baolu sez
it's Art
Deco. I sez it's 1930's institutional. Whaddiya think? Turns out we were
both wrong. Wiki (that infallible source of knowledge) sez it is "Moderne-style"...whatever that means.
Across from the depot is this little teakettle which helped
build the Panama Canal, before coming up to help build the Alaska Railroad!
I even had time to check out the head end power (ARR 3009, an
EMD GP40-2) of our Glacier Discovery train.
Boarded and seated and off we went. For about 1,000 feet. Grinding to a halt, we
cooled our heels for a good 20 minutes until a northbound passenger ambled past
us into the depot. It's consist was as follows:
ARR 3015 EMD GP40-2 New 1978
ARR 552 National Steel Car Dome ex-Canadian National 1957 coach
ARR 557 Colorado Railcar Manufacturing Dome 2007
ARR 553 National Steel Car Dome ex-Canadian National 1958 coach
ARR 351 Pullman Standard Cafe Diner ex-Chicago & North Western 1958 coach
ARR 555 Colorado Railcar Manufacturing Dome 2006
ARR 551 National Steel Car Dome ex-Canadian National 1955 coach
ARR 556 Colorado Railcar Manufacturing Dome 2006
ARR 4326 EMD SD70MAC New 2007
Second image above:
It's Santa Claus! With an impressive set of whiskers, Old
Saint Nick is on his way back to
North Pole, Alaska.
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
We resumed our trip. Then, after 15 minutes, took siding for another northbound
passenger. Anchorage's largest industry appears to be rocks as I counted at
least 3 quarries, culminating with the granddaddy of them all,
Anchorage Sand
and Gravel.
By the time we began rolling along
Turnagain Arm, the clouds had lowered and it
would be liquid sunshine the rest of the day. Not much to see out the window.
I wish they would have turned out the overhead lights for better views of the
one and only glacier (that I could see) on the Glacier Discovery train (last image above).
Whittier. We detrained into a downpour. Jumping across rushing waters coming
down the street, our intrepid guides Molly and Rachel led us to "Wild Catch
Cafe". I don't think they were expecting us. They brought out four chicken
sandwiches for the 24 of us. The staff had that "Deer trapped in the headlights"
look from the tourist onslaught. But as they did with every crisis that came
along, Molly & Rachel got everyone their food and on our way.
Ben joined us here with the bus and at 2pm we were queued up for northbound
passage though the
Whittier Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel.
There was a scrolling sign which read, "Traffic Release is at 2:00". At
precisely two, the gates lifted, traffic lights turned green and revving pickups
and cars BLASTED through the 1.7 mile long bore. Our tour bus followed at a more
sedate pace.
Alyeska Resort, Girdwood
Baolu had been talking about the tram ride since before we left Idaho, so that
was the first thing we did. (It gets skiers to the top in the winter, too.)
Now what? Group Dinner is not until 5:45, but it's five o'clock somewhere!
They had this marvelous wine on the menu, a Syrah from Pend Oreille Winery in
Sandpoint. And Dustin mixed me an Old Fashioned the old-fashioned-way like DEAR
OLD DAD used to!
We enjoyed the Syrah so much, when we got home, we drove up to
the winery in Sandpoint and "revisited" it. Excellent! Thus we
brought home a case (it was the month's featured wine and 20% off, to boot.
How did this yummy libation get all the way up to Alaska?
With dinner approaching, I had Dustin pour me a Syrah and we headed over to
"Forte".
Yeah, Forte. We had all pre-ordered what we wanted in advance as a group
(salad/entree/dessert). All 24 of us sat down at 5:45. We watched a steady
stream of servers delivering meals, pizzas, snacks to everyone in the joint, but
us.
They ignored us for a full 60 minutes, until I finally yelled out, "Hey, can we
get some FOOD over here"?? (Oh, gawd, I just did a "Dad".) The waiter was stunned. It was like he awoke from a
deep dream. About 15 minutes later, some salads trickled out of the kitchen. But
I had harshed their mellow. Now I'd pay.
To further enhance our dining pleasure, the FIRE ALARM decided to go off:
(low to high) rrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRR..urp! Beeeee...baaaaaaa.....
(low to high) rrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRR..urp! Beeeee...baaaaaaa.....
Along with that mechanical voice message no one can understand. This continued
for five minutes.
Luckily, everyone just ignored it.
Once the salads were eaten and cleared away, the entree came out....45 minutes
later with the desserts to follow another 30 minutes down. It was the longest,
slowest, 3 course meal I had ever experienced (we finally left at
9pm). Ai-Yo!
 
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