Heading To The Fair Another ancient photo from the archives taken with that little point and shoot during my first summer living in Alaska nearly a decade and a half ago. And this is the caption I wrote at the time when originally posted on RP.net long ago. The Alaska Railroad Fair Train consisting of GP38-2 2006 and two Budd RDCs (711 and 702 built by the Budd Company in 1951 and 1953 respectively as New Haven Railroad RDC-2 121 and RDC-3 129 respectively) boards passengers at the Anchorage historic depot for the journey up the mainline to Matanuska Junction and then up the freight only Palmer Branch to attend the Alaska State Fair. On the two weekends of the fair the ARR runs up to 3 round trips a day to take passengers on the nearly 50 mile trek and help alleviate a portion of the automobile traffic. This was a simpler time before the expansion of trackage at the Anchorage depot and in the Budd cars' penultimate summer of service. The cars were still able to operate self propelled and a pair did regularly on the Hurricane Turn, but as they aged they also were often locomotive hauled and used as cab control cars. Anchorage, Alaska |
