Alaska Railroad HO Scale Models

The Alaska Railroad traces its origins to 1903, when a private venture called the Alaska Central Railroad began laying track northward from Seward on the Kenai Peninsula. The company managed to build roughly 51 miles of line before financial difficulties forced it into receivership. A successor organization, the Alaska Northern Railroad Company, took over the property in 1909 and pushed the line an additional 21 miles northward before it too succumbed to insolvency. Recognizing the strategic importance of an all-weather rail corridor connecting Alaska's southern coast to its interior, the federal government stepped in decisively. President William Howard Taft had authorized a survey commission in 1912, and by 1914 Congress had committed funding and purchased the struggling Alaska Northern's assets, relocating the railroad's administrative center to a construction camp along Ship Creek that would eventually grow into Anchorage, today the state's largest city. Construction of the government-financed line proceeded steadily through some of Alaska's most demanding terrain. In 1917 the federal government also acquired the narrow gauge Tanana Valley Railroad near Fairbanks, a modest 45-mile operation serving mining communities and river docks, primarily to secure its terminal facilities in that city. Portions of the Tanana Valley line were converted to standard gauge, and a narrow gauge branch known as the Chatanika Branch continued under Alaska Railroad operation until it was decommissioned in 1930. The critical final link in the main line was the Mears Memorial Bridge, a 700-foot steel span crossing the Tanana River at Nenana, completed in 1923 and considered one of the longest single-span railroad bridges in the country at the time of its construction. President Warren G. Harding traveled to Nenana to drive a ceremonial golden spike on July 15, 1923, formally completing the railroad's main line between Seward and Fairbanks. The railroad operated under the U.S. Department of the Interior and was later transferred in 1967 to the Federal Railroad Administration within the newly established Department of Transportation. The railroad experienced significant disruption on Good Friday of 1964, when a catastrophic earthquake struck southern Alaska and caused extensive damage to trackage along Turnagain Arm as well as to yard facilities in Seward. Restoration of full service required several months of intensive repair work. In the mid-1970s, a federal capital infusion of approximately 15 million dollars supported infrastructure improvements, including upgrades tied to the construction of the Alaska Pipeline. The railroad's first diesel locomotive had entered service as early as 1944, and the last of its steam locomotives was retired in 1966. On January 6, 1985, the state of Alaska purchased the railroad from the federal government for 22.3 million dollars, a figure based on a valuation conducted by the U.S. Railway Association. The state immediately committed more than 70 million dollars to address deferred maintenance and capital improvements. Today the Alaska Railroad operates approximately 656 miles of track, including its main line of over 470 miles connecting Seward to Fairbanks through Anchorage and past the entrance to Denali National Park. A branch line to the port of Whittier facilitates the interchange of freight railcars with the contiguous United States via rail barge service to Seattle. The railroad remains a Class II carrier and holds a distinctive place in North American railroading as one of the few railroad systems owned by a state government and one of the only carriers offering both freight and passenger service through subarctic wilderness on a regular basis. Its passenger trains serve not only practical transportation needs but also attract a substantial tourism market, with a meaningful share of Denali National Park visitors arriving by rail each year.