Seward Peninsular Railroad

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Seward Peninsular RR
Legend
   
 0.0 Nome AK
   
 Little Creek AK
   
 6.5 Discovery AK
   
 10.5 Banner station AK
   
 Summit Station AK
   
 Dexter AK
   
 Salmon Lake AK
   
 Iron Creek AK
   
 Ex AK
   
 140 Lanes Landing AK (formerly Shelton)

The Seward Peninsular Railroad (SPRR), often also Seward Peninsula Railroad , is a former railroad company in Alaska ( United States ). First, the Wild Goose Railroad was founded in 1900 and opened the first 6.5 kilometers from Nome to Discovery on July 19 of that year . Anvil City was reached in the fall . The track was three feet (914 mm) wide. The terminus in Anvil City was called Banner Station . The trains only ran from spring to November, traffic was idle over the winter. Shortly afterwards, two branches, the McDonald Branch (8 km) and the Sunset Branch (10 km) were built.

After another Wild Goose Railroad had been built by the same operator about 100 kilometers to the east in 1902 , the company was renamed Nome-Arctic Railroad . On April 27, 1906, the Seward Peninsular Railroad , founded on the same day in Nevada, bought the train to extend it to Shelton on the Kuzitrin River . The 140-kilometer route went into operation in the same year. After a 300 meter long wooden bridge over the Kuzitrin River had been crushed by ice in the winter of 1906/07, it was decided to dismantle the bridge every autumn and rebuild it in the spring. In the first few years there were two daily passenger trains over the entire route. From around 1909 only two to three trains per week were offered.

As early as autumn 1910, the company stopped regular traffic and handed the route over to local buyers, who drove it mainly with draisines , some of which were pulled by dogs. Most recently, the railroad owned five locomotives, two passenger cars and 90 flat freight cars. On November 18, 1921, the State of Alaska acquired the railway line and renewed the facilities. Regular operations were not resumed. A tourist operation established as the Curly Q Line between Nome and Salmon Lake in 1953 only lasted until 1955. Part of the route was then converted into a road. The last tracks were not removed until 1963.

Sources and further information

Individual evidence
  1. ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. Pacific Northwest. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 1998.
  2. ^ A b Poor's Manual of Railroads, 44th Annual Number. Poor's Railroad Manual Co., 1911, p. 1396.
  3. ↑ Clifford 1999, p. 219.
literature
  • Howard Clifford: Alaska / Yukon Railroads. An illustrated History. Oso Publishing, Arlington WA 1999, ISBN 0-9647521-4-X , pp. 203-210.
Web links