Archives Section

Welcome to the Alaska Railroad Picture of the Week archives. A photograph is truly worth a thousand words. The Picture of the Week page began on February 16, 1998 with Jeff Child's photo of the Alaska Railroad's first locomotive, number 1. Since that time, professional photographers, railfans, Alaska Railroad employees, historians and passengers have sent a multitude of prints, slides, scanned images and digital photographs. Unfortunately, I can only post a fraction of what I receive due to lack of time. Sit back, relax and enjoy!

Picture of the Week Archives: 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007

**2008 Pictures of the Week**
Date	Photographer	Photograph
01/07	Dave Schauer	You might remember that GP40 #3004 was sent for a rebuild and then leased out to help pay for those associated costs. Well, Northshore Mining leased this unit and Dave Schauer was around to capture a few pix of it. These photos were taken 12/15/07 at Milepost 5 on Northshore Mining near Silver Bay, MN. (1, 2, 3)
01/14	Nore collection	Hurricane Gulch Bridge, August 8, 1921. This is part of the collection sent to me recently by the Nores.
01/21	Paul Duncan	It's a new year and so it's out with the old and in with the new. As you know the Alaska Railroad picked up four new SD70s. Here you see two of their old GP49s heading for a new home. Stacy Yard (BNSF) in Seattle, WA 1/10/08.
01/28	David Blazejewski	"Took this from the tower last week. Kind of neat with the fire truck on the flat bed. It was a load destined for Fairbanks. Also note the LC crane in the background. They are finally relaying all of the old 70 lb rail in the yard with 115 relay that came off the mainline. The Open Rip is done and in this picture they are just finishing up south 5, then it's on to south 6, and then North 5 and 6 and then North 8, 9, 10 and in the little yard." 12/24/07
02/04	Don Marenzi collection	Taken in Spring of 1975. The AuRoRa on Hurricane Gulch bridge. The four passenger cars in the photo are all former Union Pacific cars purchased in 1972. A note for modelers: Note the different shade of yellow on the two coaches, even though they both would have been painted within less than three years. Did one fade, or were there variations in the paint used ?
02/11	Robert McDonald	Alaska Railroad 7123, Seward, Alaska, July 1961. My late Dad was working for Foss Maritime as Chief Engineer on a tug I’ve lost track of. They were in Seward when he captured this switcher shifting cars.
02/18	Charles Bonville	Alaska Railroad's 3002 GP40 has been leased by Tri-Met Public Transit of Portland, Oregon on behalf of the Portland & Western (P&W) Railroad. P&W will be operating Tri-Met's new commuter service on P&W tracks beginning in the Fall of 2008. As the new service involves passenger rail, this will require cab signaling for P&W locomotives operating in the transit district. ARR 3002 is going to fill in for P&W locomotives as they are taken out of service one by one for installation of cab signals and GPS receivers. 3002 was delivered to P&W on February 1, and 3002's first revenue run for P&W was on the evening of February 5, 2008 when it operated with five P&W locomotives on the P&W Toledo Hauler. It is not known precisely how long 3002 will be leased to Tri-Met/P&W, but Oregon railfans anticipate a duration of three to six months.
02/25	Michael Criss	SD70MAC #4320 with an Alaskan mountain backdrop. Criss says of his photo, "It was -15 F, the wind was howling, and my bunny boots were full of snow."
03/03	Michael Allen	Old locomotives never die they just change their owners. Baldwin 4-6-0 #152 was built in 1920 and has served on the Tanana Valley Railroad, U. S. Army, Cable and Northern, Alaska Railroad and now the Huckleberry Railroad in Flint, Michigan.
03/03	Robert Ulberg	EMD GP7u #1810 is a lady that sure gets around. She was built for the U.S. Army in 1951 and has served on the Alaska Railroad, Oregon Pacific Railway, Archer Daniels Midland and now SFGX 1810 in Milwaukie, OR
03/03	Unknown	Numbers 2801 and 2802 were built new for the Alaska Railroad in 1983. They were part of an order of nine and were the only true GP49s manufactured. These two were retired from the ARR, were sold to Helm Leasing and resold to NRE 12/06. They were then sold to TRANSAP (1, 2) in Chile. An anonymous source tells me that they now ride on six axle trucks, operate on a 5 ft 6 in "broad" gauge and are now SD49s.
03/10	David Blazejewski	Just took these (1, 2, 3, 4) today (2/27/08). First revenue loads off of the old "Loop District" on Ft. Richardson. While the trackage up to the old Ft. Rich classification yard has been used off and on for storage, no cars had gone out onto the loop in at least 20 years. We had four loads from Ft. Wainwright come down about a month ago and then the cars stayed out there until today. They were reloaded yesterday by the Army and we pulled them earlier this afternoon.
03/17	Rich Troutman	The rebuild of GP-40 no. 3015. March 2008
03/24	Warren Redfearn	Today [March 21, 2008] the Alaska Railroad blew up the first quarter of Moody tunnel. I got a few photos (1, 2) of this.
03/31	Jeff Aguiar	Ah, all good things must come to an end. These are photos (1, 2, 3) of boxcar MWT1552E (old troop sleeper/boxcar) being scrapped at Alaska Metal Recycling on March 24, 2008.
04/07	Casie Williams	I don't care how many times I see photos like this one, they still make my eyes pop out. Skip and Casie Williams took a round trip to Fairbanks the second week of February. The extremely clear weather and minus 25 degree temperatures made for some fine photos: the reflection at Hurricane Gulch and Denali with several surrounding peaks.
04/14	Michael Criss	It's time for another mesmerizing photo by Mike Criss from Wasilla. The southbound Aurora is crossing the ???? bridge on March 18. The first person to send me the correct name of this bridge will win one of my new website magnets.
04/21	David Blazejewski	Picking up rip rap at Eklutna, 7/4/07.
04/21	Dale Greth	A beautiful Alaska Railroad sunrise, 4/18/08.
04/28	Dale Greth	As the Alaskan days grow longer and people's thoughts turn to spring, old man winter gave the Anchorage area one final mighty blast. The April 25th snowfall was the third-heaviest in a single day plus breaking records for the day and month. The national weather service said 17 inches fell south of Anchorage and 22 inches in Muldon on Friday and Saturday. Dale Greth appropriately titles his photo taken on April 25th as, "Home Sweet Home."
05/05	Rich Holzapfel	After 34 years with the Alaska Railroad extra-gang foreman Rich "Hozer" Holzapfel has retired. Rich began his career as a laborer on Extra Gang #4 working out of outfit cars at Lignite Siding. Rich began sending Maintenance of Way (MOW) photos to my website in 1998 and has been a loyal contributor ever since. I first met Rich in 2000 as he was finishing up on a work train for the day. He proclaimed, "Quitting time! It is now 0 beer 30." In later years I was given the privilege of accompanying him on the snow fleet as well as other work trains. It was these opportunities that showed me the hard work and pride that MOW crews put into their job. Rich, thanks for your contributions to this website and best wishes in your future endeavors! This August 2004 photo is of a northbound work train at Brookman going to pickup used ties.
05/12	Art Chase	While Art Chase made a run from North Pole to Talkeetna on May 8 he caught the work train moving rock from the Moody Tunnel demolition. The second photo is a nearby location where the rock is being dumped.

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