Alaska Railroad Photographs

No. 4007 the "Spirit of Palmer" was assembled at EMD's Juniata Plant in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It arrived in Anchorage on March 28, 2000.

On April 3, 2000 the unit was involved in a very minor accident. Craig McKeen, EMD Field Engineer who was on site troubleshooting the SD70MACs at the time says, "While the hostlers were moving the units around, swapping one for another, disaster struck. An apparent miscommunication between the hostlers and a split second and I was part of my first railroad accident. This was most definitely a bad omen for the ride. The 4006 (a.k.a. the Spirit of Anchorage) had collided with the side of the 4007 (as yet without a name). The scary part was that the 4007 had just completed its maiden voyage. The damage was mostly cosmetic, but it was 12:30 in the morning and no one was too happy about being rousted out of bed. After finally pulling the two units apart, we grabbed another unit and built our consist and got on the road."

For more information, see my ARR SD70MAC page.

Photo courtesy of Steve Noland
Photo taken at Union Pacific's service facility (inside a wye) at Argo (Seattle), WA on March 5, 2000

Back in March of 2000 some of the new ARR power moved thru the Seattle area en route to Alaska. While the UP yard in Seattle is zealously guarded, the engine terminal is located along a city street, so anything of interest can be easily seen from public property.

I work in the neighborhood, so I often swing by just to see if there’s anything of interest. There was on this occasion. All of these photos were taken from the city street adjacent to the UP engine facility.

4007

4007
Seattle, WA 03/07/00

4007 Builder's Plate
Builder's Plate 03/05/00

4007
Anchorage 08/21/03

4007 Eklutna
Eklutna 09/21/04