White Pass and Yukon Railway

White Pass & Yukon Rwy., As of 2006
Gauge :	914 mm ( English 3-foot track )
Legend Skagway AK Hafen (Pers.bf.) Skagway ore port (Güterbf.) Skagway Junction Skagway AK (formerly Skaguay) (Depot) Boulder Denver AK Rocky Point Clifton Black Cross Heney Glacier Slippery skirt Tunnel 1 Inspiration point Gulch Tunnel 2 American Shed White Pass AK State border USA / Canada Gateway Meadows Fraser BC Ptarmigan Point Chilcoot BC Log Cabin Barry Bennett BC Pavey BC Graves Pennington BC Border Br. Columbia-Yukon Terr. Pit Watson YT Wheaton River Carcross YT (formerly Caribou) Lansdowne YT Lorne YT Minto YT De bet YT Robinson YT Cowley YT MacRae YT Carr Glynn YT Wigan YT Utah YT Pueblo YT Whitehorse YT (formerly White Horse)

The White Pass and Yukon Railway (also White Pass and Yukon Route ) ( WP&YR ) is a railroad company in Alaska , British Columbia and the Yukon . It consists of three subsidiaries that manage the route section in the respective states.

history

prehistory

As early as 1885 there were first considerations to build a railroad from the coast in southern Alaska to the Yukon region. Initially it was planned to build a route from Sitka or Juneau over the Chilkoot Pass . The establishment of the Chilkoot Pass and Summit Railroad Company was applied for, but not approved due to lack of financial coverage.

After gold was found at Dawson in 1896 , more and more miners came to the Yukon River area and the Klondike gold rush developed . For this reason it was very soon necessary to connect the prospecting areas around Dawson and a smaller area around Atlin in British Columbia to a port where the workers would arrive. Due to the protected location and the route possible over the White Pass , Skagway was chosen as the starting point. A railway line to Fort Selkirk was to be built , a distance of 523 kilometers. For reasons of cost, it was decided to build the line in the gauge of three feet (914 mm), which only required a ten-foot-wide route instead of standard gauge with a 15-foot-wide route.

For this purpose, a railway company was founded in each of the three administrative areas in 1897:

• in Alaska the Pacific and Arctic Railway and Navigation Company ,
• in British Columbia the British Columbia Yukon Railway Company and
• in the Yukon Territory the British Yukon Mining, Trading and Transportation Company , which was reorganized in 1900 into the British Yukon Railway Company .

On July 30, 1898, the White Pass and Yukon Railway Company Limited was finally founded in London, which then took over the three companies.

Construction of the network

Construction began in May 1898 and on July 21 of that year, after some problems with Soapy Smith , a local gang leader, the first 6.4 kilometers to Boulder could be opened. On February 20, 1899, the first passenger train reached the White Pass and thus the state border with Canada. The 32.2-kilometer route from Skagway here overcame 873 vertical meters. A tunnel and numerous viaducts had to be built.

"Snow Blow No 1", built in 1899

Gold miners on their way home arrived early on July 6, 1899 with the steamer in Bennett and bought train tickets for a train at 2 p.m., although there was still no track at the station. However, they heard the track workers two miles away. So many passengers were so eager to continue that they helped the workers finish the line to Bennett station so that the first train could leave Bennett on time at 2pm. Regular operations started two days later. Since Bennett was only a provisional terminus and no turntable was to be built, the trains turned here over a track triangle.

Around this time, construction began on the Carcross - Whitehorse section . The remaining stretch between Bennett and Carcross along the east bank of Lake Bennett was more difficult and was built later. Both sections of the route finally went into operation on August 1, 1900, after the last nail had been ceremoniously hammered three days beforehand. The entire route had a length of 177.7 kilometers. Despite the difficult climatic and topographical conditions, only 35 of a total of 35,000 workers were killed during the construction work.

Since the gold rush had already subsided, the route was not built further to Dawson City and Fort Selkirk as originally planned. In addition to the railway operation, the railway company had also set up a postal service between Whitehorse and Dawson in 1901, which was carried out with horse-drawn carriages. These cars were also used to carry passengers. In addition, the railway owned 17 river steamers and 12 smaller ships in 1910, with which passengers were carried over the Yukon River to central Alaska.

The "Taku Tram"

Now the gold fields at Atlin had to be connected. You could get from Carcross by ship over the Wheaton River and Tagish Lake , through which the Yukon River flows, to Taku City . From there, the Yukon is no longer navigable. A four-kilometer-wide land bridge separates Tagish Lake from Atlin Lake . The river is very narrow at this point and not suitable for transporting people and loads. To overcome this land bridge, the Atlin Short Line Railway and Navigation , founded in February 1899, built a horse-drawn railway with wooden rails in the gauge of three feet from Taku City to Scotia Bay , from where a ferry ran across Atlin Lake to Atlin. The railway went into operation on June 6, 1899 and was nicknamed Taku Tram . About a year after the start of operations, WP&YR took over this railway and converted the facilities into a steam-powered railway, which was opened on July 18, 1900. It was finally shut down in 1951. In 1956 the tracks were dismantled. The former embankment is now an unpaved hiking trail.

Further railway projects to develop Atlin and the surrounding area were never realized. The Atlin Southern Railway had received a concession for a railway line from Log Cabin via Atlin to Telegraph Creek in 1899, but it was never built. There is a replica of one of the steam locomotives, the "Duchees", in the Hannover Adventure Zoo.

Horse tracks in Whitehorse

Before the WP&YR arrived in Whitehorse, there was already rail traffic around the city. In the spring of 1898, Norman D. Macaulay opened the Canyon and White Horse Rapids Railway , a horse-drawn railway, three foot gauge along the east side of the river to bypass the dangerous Miles Canyon south of town. Shortly thereafter, John Hepburn also opened a railway on the west side of the river, the Miles Canyon and Lewes River Tramway . Macaulay eventually bought the Hepburns railway and operated both railways profitably until 1900 the WP&YR approached the city. He eventually sold both lines to the railway, which used the western route partially for railway construction.

Further development

Locomotive 93 in Skagway (2006)

In 1910 a 18.17 km long branch from Mac Rae to Pueblo went into operation to open up a new mining area there. In the meantime, more silver, copper and lead was mined in the region than gold. The branch line to Pueblo was closed again in 1918.

In June 1934, the company expanded its fleet to include a seaplane, which now also brought passengers from Whitehorse to Dawson. Shortly afterwards, more aircraft were purchased and flight operations from Skagway and to other destinations north of Whitehorse were also started.

After the global economic crisis , which also affected mining in the region, a passenger train sometimes only ran once a week. The situation changed when the USA entered the war in December 1941. From October 1, 1942, the US Army took control of the railway. Numerous locomotives and wagons were dispatched to Skagway by other railways, as the railroad had great strategic importance: until 1978 it was the only land transport connection from Skagway to the Yukon River. Seventeen trains traveled the route daily, up to 34 on peak days. A bypass was built in Skagway and the original route on Broadway was closed.

After the Army relinquished control of the WP&YR on May 1, 1946, things became quiet again at White Pass. The railway company had to be liquidated in 1951 and was replaced by the new White Pass and Yukon Corporation . This company was acquired by the Federal Industries Group (now Russell Metals ) from 1973 to 1976 . In the 1950s, diesel locomotives replaced the outdated steam locomotives. In 1956, the world's first container train drove on the WP&YR. When a new lead and zinc mine was opened near Whitehorse in 1969, the transport numbers skyrocketed. In the same year, the route was moved to the Dead Horse Gorge. The old steel bridge over the gorge was no longer able to withstand the loads of the many trains. The railway was led through a new additional tunnel and over a new bridge.

In 1982 numerous mines had to be closed due to the sharp drop in metal prices. Since the railway did not count itself on the passenger traffic alone, the line was closed on October 7th of that year. However, the railway's facilities remained operational.

As more and more cruise ships landed in Skagway from the late 1980s and tourism increased in the region, the benefits of the railway were recognized and the decision was made to operate it again as a tourist railway. In 1988 the Skagway – White Pass section in Alaska went back into operation. Some vehicles were bought from the Newfoundland Railway, which was closed in November 1988 . The following year the trains ran to Fraser again, and in 1992 to Bennett. From 1997 trains occasionally drove to Carcross, but initially there was no regular service there. In the same year, Russel Metals spun off the railway company and another transport company into the newly created Tri-White Corporation (later TWC Enterprises ).

From May 2007 the trains ran back to Carcross as scheduled. After heavy flooding, operations between Bennett and Carcross had to be suspended for some time on July 27, 2007 because the bridge in Carcross was no longer operationally safe. The bridge could be repaired, however, so that trains run to Carcross again.

The White Pass and Yukon Route was added to the List of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1994 .

In the summer of 2018, the railway company was acquired by the cruise company Carnival Corporation & plc .

passenger traffic

Locomotive 73 in Skagway 2006

The October 1913 timetable provided a daily train Skagway - Whitehorse , which took 7 hours 45 minutes to the Yukon and 7 hours and five minutes to the port. The two trains met in Bennett. There was no passenger traffic on the route to Pueblo. It is not clear whether passenger trains ever ran on the route.

According to the timetable of June 1, 1934, there were a total of three pairs of trains at that time. One mixed train ran on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and another mixed train pair ran from Skagway to Whitehorse on Wednesdays and Fridays and back on Thursdays and Saturdays. The third train ran purely as a passenger train and ran in both directions on Wednesdays and Fridays. The travel time for the route was between 6 hours, 15 minutes and 7 hours, 20 minutes.

According to the timetable of May 19, 1964, two trains were running at that time. A daily train ran the entire route and took 6 hours 15 minutes to go to Whitehorse and 6 hours and 40 minutes to go to Skagway. Another train only operated in connection with the liner steamers in Skagway and only went to Carcross. The railway's own bus line ran once a day from Whitehorse to Beaver Creek on the Alaska border.

In 2007 there was a daily Skagway – Carcross train, which took more than six hours to cover the distance - as much as a passenger train from Skagway to Whitehorse in 1934. Carcross has been approached several times a week since 2010. There are also several trains that only run to White Pass, Fraser or Bennett.

Shipping line

On November 26, 1955, the company began operating the world's first container ship , the Clifford J. Rogers , on the route between Vancouver and Skagway. In 1965 the Clifford J. Rogers was replaced by the Frank H. Brown , which in turn was supplemented in 1969 by the Klondike .

literature

• Omer Lavallée: Narrow Gauge Railways of Canada . Railfare Enterprises, Montreal 1972, ISBN 0-919130-21-6 , pp. 56-63, 107-111 .
• Donald M. Bain: White Pass and Yukon Railway . In: William D. Middleton, George M. Smerk, Roberta L. Diehl (Eds.): Encyclopedia of North American Railroads . Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN 2007, ISBN 978-0-253-34916-3 .
• Karl Zimmermann: White Pass' new gold . In: Trains . Kalmbach Publishing Co., May 2006, ISSN  0041-0934 , p. 30-39 .
• FL Jaques: Gateway to the Yukon . In: Trains . Kalmbach Publishing Co., January 1951, ISSN  0041-0934 , p. 36-43 .
• Howard Clifford: Alaska / Yukon Railroads . Oso Publishing, Arlington WA 1999, ISBN 0-9647521-4-X , pp. 1-56 .

Web links

Commons : White Pass and Yukon Route  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official side of the web (English)
• Web page for the WP & YR railway friend and fan (English)
• Private page for WP&YR

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. Western Canada. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB), 2006.
2. ↑ Cliford 1999, p. 25.
3. ^ Poor's Manual of Railroads, 44th Annual Number. Poor's Railroad Manual Co., 1911, p. 1508.
4. ↑ Trains online magazine from August 20, 2007, trains.com (only readable for subscribers)
5. ↑ Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Issued November 1913. White Pass & Yukon Route. P. 988f.
6. ↑ Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Issued February 1934. White Pass & Yukon Route. P. 1193.
7. ↑ Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Issued November 1964. White Pass & Yukon Route. P. 870.
8. ↑ Official timetable ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.